UBfiARY 
SCHOOL 


LECTURES    TO 
PRINTERS'  APPRENTICES 

REPORTS    OF    A    SERIES    OF    LECTURES 

DELIVERED   AT  THE   NORTH   END   UNION 

SCHOOL    OF    PRINTING,   CONDUCTED    BY 

MASTER    PRINTERS    OF    BOSTON 

1908-1909 


PRINTED     AT     THE     SCHOOL     OF     PRINTING 

NORTH    END    UNION,    PARMENTER     STREET 

BOSTON,     U.  S.  A. 


UBRARY 
SCHOOl 


. t..,,  PREFATORY    NOTE 

THE  papers  here  printed  are  of  some  lectures 
on  trade  topics  given  at  the  North  End  Union 
School  of  Printing,  Boston,  during  1908  and 
1909.  The  lectures  were,  with  a  few  exceptions, 
given  on  alternate  Tuesday  afternoons,  from  4.30  to 
5.30  o'clock,  and  were  arranged  for  apprentices  and 
young  printers  who  were  regularly  at  work  in  printing 
offices,  as  well  as  for  the  pupils  in  the  School. 
Employers  and  foremen  were  urged  to  allow  young 
men  to  attend,  and  to  let  them  off  from  their  work 
earlier  on  the  lecture  days.  Prizes  wrere  offered  to 
apprentices  in  attendance  for  the  best  reports  made 
of  the  lectures  and  much  interest  was  evoked  in 
making  notes  of  what  the  speakers  said. 

To  the  lecturers  and  others  who  have  assisted  in 
this  project  of  trade  education,  the  management  of 
the  School  offers  grateful  acknowledgments ;  the 
time  and  effort  which  they  so  generously  gave  have 
made  possible  the  success  of  these  Apprenticeship 
Lectures. 


252&01 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  PRINTING,  NORTH  END 
UNION,  20  PARMENTER  STREET,  BOSTON 

BOARD    OF    SUPERVISORS 

J.  STEARNS  GUSHING,  J.S.  Gushing &>  Co.,  Norwood 
GEO.  H.  ELLIS,  Geo.  H.  Ellis  Co.,  272  Congress  St. 
J.  W.  PHINNEY,  American  Type  Fdrs.  Co.,  Boston 
H.  G.  PORTER,  Smith  &  Porter  Press,  530  Atlantic  Av.' 
GEO.  W.  SIMONDS,  C.  H.  Simonds  6°  Co.,  Congress  St. 
HENRY  P.  PORTER,  Oxford- Print,  148  high  St. 

JOSEPH  LEE,  Vice-Pres.  Massachusetts  Civic  League 
SAMUEL  Y.  HUBBARD,  Supt.  North  End  Union 

A.  A.  STEWART,  Instructor 

THE  SCHOOL  OF  PRINTING  was  established  in 
January,  1900,  by  the  North  End  Union,  under 
the  supervision  of  a  number  of  leading  master  print- 
ers of  Boston.  It  has  had  to  demonstrate  its  purpose 
in  practical  results,  and  is  gradually  being  recognized 
by  those  who  realize  the  important  need  in  the  trade 
of  such  a  method  of  technical  instruction. 

The  purpose  of  the  School  is  to  give  fundamental 
and  general  instruction  in  printing-office  work,  and 
to  offer  young  men,  through  a  system  of  indentured 
apprenticeship,  an  opportunity  to  learn  the  things 
which  each  year  are  becoming  more  and  more  diffi- 
cult for  the  apprentice  to  obtain  in  the  restricted  and 
specialized  conditions  of  the  modern  workshop. 

The  course  of  study  embraces  book,  commercial, 
and  advertising  composition,  and  platen  press  work. 
The  School  is  supplied  with  hand  and  job  presses, 
roman  and  display  types  of  various  styles,  and  the 
usual  furniture  and  material  of  a  modern  printing 
office.  The  hours  are  identical  with  those  of  a  reg- 
ular workshop,  from  7. 40  A.M.  to  5  P.M.,  excepting 
Saturday  afternoon.  The  tuition  fee  for  one  year  is 
$100.  Applicants  must  be  sixteen  years  of  age  or  over. 

For  further  information  address  SAMUEL  F.  HUB- 
BARD,  20  Parmenter  Street,  Boston. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

TYPOGRAPHIC  DESIGN      .     .     .     Henry  Lewis  Johnson  3 

BOOK  COMPOSITION     .....     /.  Stearns  Gushing  13 

How  TYPE  is  MADE  .                    \          J-  W.  PMnney  33 

i  George  C.  Creighton  35 

MACHINE  COMPOSITION  :   The  Linotype  J.D.Montross  47 

MACHINE  COMPOSITION  :  The  Monotype  Robt.W.  Swift  61 

FROM  APPRENTICE  TO  EMPLOYER   .     .    Thomas  Todd  73 

LINE  AND  HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING  .     .   .  Day  Baker  87 

THE  GOLDEN  HOURS John  Macintire  103 

ELECTROTYPING Joseph  H.  Ware  \  1 1 

MAKING  OF  PRINTING  INK.     .     .     .      Philip  Ruxton  121 

PRINTING  PRESSES  AND  PRESSWORK     James  Berwick  135 


TYPOGRAPHIC     DESIGN 


T  Y  P  O  G  R  A  P  H  I  C    D  E  S  I  G  N 

By  HENRY  LEWIS  JOHNSON,  Editor  of 
The  Printing  Art  ::    ::    ::    ::    ::    LECTURE  No.  I 

WE  stand  on  historic  ground.  When  the  record 
is  made  up  showing  the  important  events  in 
the  great  industrial  development  upon  which 
it  is  believed  we  have  now  entered,  the  revival  of  the 
apprenticeship  system  in  the  School  of  Printing  of 
Boston  will  hold  a  prominent  "place.  This  present  lec- 
ture course  is  still  further  indicative  of  the  awakening 
of  concern  and  interest  in  the  advancement  of  stand- 
ards in  printing.  It  has  too  long  been  a  case  of  shoe- 
makers' children  going  barefoot.  The  printing  press 
has  always  been  a  fundamental  factor  in  all  "indus- 
trial and  educational  development,  but  literature 
dealing  with  printing,  schools,  and  lecture  courses 
have  been  sadly  lacking. 

Before  discussing  the  subject  of  typographic  de- 
sign, we  can  well  ask,  "  What  does  printing  mean 
to  us?"  It  cannot  fail  to  command  our  enthusiasm 
and  stir  our  deepest  purpose  for  attainment  if  we 
understand  how  great  a  part  it  has  in  the  affairs  of 
the  world.  We  must  realize  that  there  are  a  larger 
number  of  establishments  engaged  in  printing  than 
in  any  other  single  industry  and  there  is  not  the  tend- 
ency toward  consolidation  which  has  developed  so 
much  in  other  directions.  A  printer  still  has  the 
opportunity  for  individual  enterprise  and  attainment. 
Ranking  as  the  seventh  giant  industry,  printing  shows 
a  greater  gain  than  any  other  —  forty-two  per  cent  in 
the  last  five  years.  I  shall  undertake  to  emphasize 
later  some  of  the  evidences  of  the  ways  in  which  the 
business  affairs  of  the  world  are  being  conducted 
more  and  more  through  printing-press  product.  It  is 

[3] 


TYPOGRAPHIC    D  E  S  I  G  N  —  J  o  HNS  ON 

now  the  underlying  motive  force  and  vehicle  of  busi- 
ness of  national  industries  and  individual  affairs.  In 
an  interesting  appreciation  made  by  W.  S.  Rossiter, 
he  says:  "This  industry  [printing  and  publishing] 
may  be  termed  the  barometer  of  commercial  pros- 
perity. It  differs  from  all  other  industries  in  that  it 
deals  with  every  calling  and  is  closely  identified  with 
the  prosperity  of  each.  A  manufacturer  of  shoes  has 
but  an  academic  interest  in  the  piano  industry ;  but 
both  the  shoemaker  and  the  piano  man  are  interested 
in  advertising  and  printing.  There  are  few  callings 
indeed  in  which  the  intelligent  or  the  careless  use  of 
these  agents  does  not  mean  the  difference  between 
success  and  failure." 

IMPORTANT  COMMERCIAL  DEVELOPMENT 

No  great  enterprise  or  developments  can  be  carried 
on  without  the  printing  press.  When  one  of  the  Rus- 
sian loans  was  to  be  placed  in  this  country,  special 
circulars,  application  forms,  and  many  other  docu- 
ments were  required  for  the  portion  allotted  to 
Boston.  Compositors  and  pressmen  worked  day  and 
night  to  produce  the  necessary  business  vehicles  for 
carrying  through  this  transaction.  Next  to  the  bank- 
ers, the  printers  were  the  most  important  factors. 

Bulletins  and  pamphlets  issued  by  electrical  com- 
panies are  not  merely  specifications  and  price  lists, 
but  are  in  a  sense  scientific  publications  which  give 
information  about  new  methods  of  transmission  or 
applications  of  electrical  energy.  They  lead  the  way 
to  new  developments  and  indicate  the  necessary 
equipment. 

The  telephone  books  of  our  great  cities  are  in- 
stances of  the  remarkable  requirements  in  present-day 

[4] 


LECTURE  I  — TYPOGRAPHIC   DESIGN 

printing.  The  cities  of  New  York,  Chicago,  and  Phil- 
adelphia require  approximately  one  million  four 
hundred  thousand  books,  representing  an  enormous 
amount  of  paper  and  presswork  aggregating  forty-two 
million  impressions.  Each  edition  would  keep  one 
press  busy  fourteen  years. 

Other  instances  of  modern  uses  are  the  finely  illus- 
trated pamphlets  issued  by-  steamship  and  railway 
lines.  Many  of  these  are  richly  illustrated  documents 
full  of  historical  matter  and  as  finely  printed  as  the 
best  of  geographies  and  histories.  It  is  reported  that 
one  European  steamship  line  spends  eighty  thousand 
dollars  yearly  in  stimulating  travel  by  this  method. 

It  is  generally  conceded  that  the  greatest  effort  for 
attractive  printing  is  in  catalogues  and  souvenirs 
issued  by  commercial  houses  and  manufacturers.  A 
western  threshing  machine  company  has  issued  a 
finely  bound  book  with  a  symbolic  device  of  the 
sickle  and  sheaf  for  the  cover  design.  The  cover  and 
end  papers  are  straw  color,  the  frontispiece  is  a  re- 
production of  one  of  the  old  masters,  illustrating  the 
harvest  field,  while  head-bands,  marginal  decorations 
and  other  illustrations  show  the  development  of 
harvesting  methods.  From  the  early  days  of  the  Nile 
valley  to  the  broad  plains  of  the  West  at  present,  in 
design,  illustration  and  typography,  this  book  repre- 
sents the  high  standard  of  modern  printing-press 
product. 

The  Gorham  Golf  Book  is  one  of  the  best  exam- 
ples of  aesthetic  quality  and  indirect  advertising.  It 
is  devoted  entirely  to  the  official  rules  of  golf,  inter- 
spersed with  miniature  reproductions  in  color,  illus- 
trating the  game.  Finely  printed  and  attractively 
bound,  it  is  a  souvenir  which  will  be  prized  and 

[Si 


T  Y  P  O,G  RAPHIC    DESIGN  —  JOHNSON 

retained  by  everyone  fortunate  enough  to  receive 
it.  Automobile  catalogues  are  becoming  conspicuous 
for  fine  design,  excellence  in  mechanical  illustration 
and  general  style.  Catalogues  relating  not  only  to 
industrial  art  products  and  the.  so-called  luxuries,  but 
the  most  business-like  publications  dealing  with 
purely  mechanical  appliances,  are  produced  with  a 
similar  use  of  design,  color,  and  high  mechanical 
standards.  This  characteristic  of  business  literature 
must  not  be  overlooked  nor  minimized  by  the  printer, 
or  the  apprentice.  It  means  that  the  mechanics  of 
printing  must  be  supplemented  by  other  elements 
which  constitute  quality.  This  is  all  embraced  in  the 
two  functions  which  printing  serves — to  convey  (i) 
thought,  and  (2)  feeling. 

Some  of  the  elements  of  type  design  can  be  ex- 
pressed more  clearly  by  formulation. 

TYPOGRAPHIC  ELEMENTS 

f  Appropriateness 
Kind  of  Type  \  Use  of  Series 

(^Degree  of  Contrast 

f  Architecture 
Arrangement  \  Balance 

i^Who,  What,  When,  Where 

(  Style 

Decoration 
Feelmg  .  .  .    J.  Color 

(^Papers 

Appropriateness  is  given  the  most  prominence  be- 
cause it  is  the  first  element  of  efficiency.  The  use  of 
a  series  of  type  is  characteristic  of  the  best  work. 

[6] 


LECTURE  I  — TYPOGRAPHIC  DESIGN 

not  only  because  it  looks  well,  but  because  it  main- 
tains a  better  balance  between  the  various  features, 
emphasis  being  gained  by  the  necessary  difference 
in  size,  rather  than  in  types,  which  tend  to  confuse. 
The  degree  of  contrast  must  be  adjusted  to  the  relative 
importance  of  the  display  features.  The  tendency 
now  is  for  less  emphasis  in  display  and  more  liberal 
use  of  white  space  and  margins. 

Of  the  specifications  under  Arrangement,  archi- 
tecture is  a  general  term  which  can  be  applied  to  the 
construction  of  a  form,  and  at  the  same  time  it  should 
have  a  specific  significance.  The  laws  and  precedents 
of  architecture  can  be  studied  to  advantage.  We 
must  know  about  the  typographic  accessories/  such 
as  florets,  borders,  initials  and  head-bands.  These  all 
represent  some  style  of  ornament  and  must  be  appro- 
priate to  the  accompanying  type.  The  proper  basis 
of  ornament  is  the  study  of  architecture.  According 
to  James  Ward,  "  The  best  ornament  the  world  has 
ever  seen  has  been  constructed  and  is  based  on  the 
laws  that  govern  architecture." 

The  question  of  balance  depends  upon  the  cultiva- 
tion of  feeling  for  it.  The  centre  of  gravity  of  the 
page  must  always  be  above  the  geometrical  centre, 
and  where  panel  forms  are  used  at  the  top  and  bot- 
tom of  the  page,  by  far  the  greater  weight  is  in  the 
upper  panel. 

The  suggested  arrangement  of  "  Who,  What,  When , 
Where "  is  that  proposed  by  Mr.  De  Vinne  as  a 
guide  to  the  compositor  in  determining  the  important 
display  lines  of  an  announcement  or  circular.  It  is 
not  always  possible  to  follow  just  this  order,  but 
an  effort  must  be  made  to  determine  what  are  the 
important  points. 

[7] 


TYPOGRAPHIC    D  E  S  I  G  N  —  J  o  H  NS  ON 

Under  the  heading  of  Feeling  are  embraced  the 
elements  which  contribute  to  attractiveness.  New 
types  or  the  excellent  handling  of  standard  faces  may 
have  freshness  and  attractiveness  and  yet  avoid  all 
eccentricity.  Some  of  the  worst  features  of  typog- 
raphy are  due  to  the  abundance  of  decorative 
material  which  leads  to  the  use  of  ornaments  which 
do  not  harmonize  with  the  accompanying  type. 
Heavy  decorations,  such  as  the  Jenson  ornaments, 
are  used  with  light  faced  Roman  types,  and  heavy 
initials  overbalance  text  letters  in  the  same  manner. 
The  period  of  ornament  adopted  should  harmonize 
with  the  character  of  type,  and  the  use  or  misuse  of 
ornament  at  once  reveals  the  taste  and  discrimination 
of  the  compositor. 

In  the  modern  effort  to  secure  attention  and  make 
a  favorable  impression,  color  has  a  new  importance. 
A  large  portion  of  commercial  forms  are  displayed 
in  two  colors,  while  catalogues  are  often  in  two  or 
more  colors  throughout.  Among  every  season's  holi- 
day books  are  many  which  have  decorative  titles, 
initials,  and  borders  in  color.  These  must  be  appro- 
priate and  well-balanced  with  relation  to  the  accom- 
panying type  matter.  The  danger  is  too  much  rather 
than  too  little  color.  Strong  contrasts  must  be  avoid- 
ed, as  they  are  usually  offensive.  Black  and  red  are 
the  standard  for  rubrication,  and  yet  great  discrimi- 
nation is  required  in  the  choice  of  red.  The  orange 
and  light  reds  are  usually  more  successful  than  dark 
shades. 

It  is  said  that  of  the  several  kinds  of  beauty  the 
eye  takes  the  most  delight  in  colors.  Further,  "  Noth- 
ing reveals  the  culture  of  the  individual  and  the 
country  more  than  color." 

[8] 


LECTURE  I  — TYPOGRAPHIC   DESIGN 

There  are  some  well-defined  tendencies  in  color  for 
borders,  titles,  and  footnotes  accompanying  three- 
or  four-color  illustrations.  Gray  inks  are  used, 
browns,  greens,  and  grays  being  found  in  great 
variety  in  borders,  decorations,  and  rule  work  of  cat- 
alogue pages.  There  is  also  endless  variety  in  covers, 
the  stock  itself  and  strong  complementary  colors  be- 
ing combined  attractively.  With  many  of  the  darker 
and  more  subdued  cover  stocks,  harmonious  color 
schemes  are  arranged,  giving  rich  effects.  A  good 
color  sense  can  be  acquired  only  by  the  study  of  the 
principles  which  are  involved  in  the  use  of  color  in 
design  and  painting.  The  ability  to  use  color  is  be- 
coming an  important  equipment  both  for  the  typog- 
rapher and  pressman. 

The  possibilities  of  producing  attractive  printing 
have  been  immensely  increased  in  recent  years  by 
the  new  varieties  of  papers.  For  catalogues  and 
pamphlets  there  are  many  grades  of  stock,  some 
hard  and  highly  finished  for  bronze  and  full  color ; 
others  in  soft  texture  and  subdued  tones  for  light 
and  harmonious  color  schemes.  In  text  pages,  the 
machine-finished  and  super-calendered  stocks  have 
been  supplemented  by  antique,  wove  and  laid,  plate, 
linen  surface,  and  crash  finishes.  Many  of  these 
papers  have  the  characteristics  of  color,  pliability, 
and  texture  which  distinguish  hand-made  papers. 
Much  attractive  work  is  produced  by  the  simplest 
forms  of  typography,  well  printed  upon  some  of  the 
new  papers,  which  contribute  a  feeling  of  quality 
and  distinction. 

There  must  be  a  careful  adjustment  between  the 
size  and  kind  of  typography  and  the  texture  of  the 
paper.  Small  and  light  faced  types  require  smooth 

[9] 


TYPOGRAPHIC    D  ES  I  G  N  —  J  o  HN  s  o  N 

or  plate  finished  papers,  while  strong  display  or  medi- 
aeval book  effects  are  best  on  antique  papers. 

PERSONAL    EXPRESSION 

It  is  said  that  everything  that  a  man  does  reveals 
himself.  The  printer  must  realize  that  while  he  is 
to  convey  the  thought  of  the  author  in  what  he  con- 
ceives to  be  the  best  form,  he  is  also  giving  especial 
evidence  of  his  own  ability  or  lack  of  it.  Printing  is 
a  personal  expression  on  the  part  of  the  printer  just 
as  it  is  by  the  author.  When  we  hold  printing  in 
adequate  appreciation,  we  realize  more  fully  our  re- 
sponsibilities and  opportunities  in  using  this  funda- 
mental factor  in  the  world's  affairs. 

While  the  mechanics  of  printing  have  continued 
much  the  same  in  principle,  styles  and  standards  are 
constantly  changing,  especially  since  the  days  of 
photo-mechanical  engraving  process.  The  efficiency 
of  modern  printing  depends  more  and  more  upon  the 
design  and  fine  adjustment  which  the  printer  makes 
of  all  the  fundamental  features  of  typography,  illus- 
tration, paper,  colors  of  ink,  and  binding.  At  no  time 
can  we  rest  upon  such  mechanical  and  artistic  quali- 
fications as  we  may  have  attained.  One  of  the  world's 
great  masters,  Michael  Angelo,  said,  "  Still  I  am 
learning,"  and  Horace  Fletcher  advises  us  now,  "  If 
we  are  wise,  we  never  leave  school." 

In  conclusion,  I  commend  to  you  the  epitome  by 
Mr.  Stewart,  "  The  printer :  he  who  sticks  truths  on 
end  and  stamps  them  with  a  mighty  impression  upon 
the  consciousness  of  his  race." 


[10] 


II 

BOOK    COMPOSITION 


BOOK    COMPOSITION 

By  ].  STEARNS   GUSHING,^/"  the  Nonfood 
Press,  Norwood,  Mass.  ::   ::   ::    LECTURE  No.  II 

PREVIOUS  to  the  time  movable  type  was  used 
by  Gutenberg  and  Faust  for  printing  books, 
they  were  printed  from  engraved  blocks,  or 
were  in  manuscript  form. 

The  first  type  was  made  to  imitate,  as  closely  as 
possible,  the  letters  in  the  manuscript  books,  and  the 
fonts  contained  many  combination  or  double  letters, 
such  as  we  have  to-day  in  ff,  ffl,  ffi,  etc.,  and  many 
abbreviations  such  as  C3=  cujus,  q  =  qui,  q=quod, 
cp  =  que,  2£  =  rum,  etc.  This  attempt  by  printers 
to  imitate  manuscript  books  was  owing  to  the  fact 
that  printed  books  were  not  popular  among  book- 
buyers  at  first ;  they  were  considered  cheap  and  de- 
grading to  art  and  literature.  Those  rich  enough  at 
that  time  to  afford  to  buy  books  did  not  desire  to 
have  them  made  so  cheaply  that  the  poorer  people 
could  easily  get  them.  The  higher  education  of  the 
common  people  was  not  then  considered  desirable. 

Oftentimes  blanks  were  left  in  the  printed  page  at 
the  beginnings  of  chapters,  to  be  filled  in  later  by 
hand  with  initials  drawn  in  colors ;  and  generally 
broad  margins  were  left  for  hand  decoration,  which 
were  sometimes  only  partially  filled  in  and  sometimes 
left  blank  altogether. 

I  have  here  a  reproduction  in  colors  of  a  page  of 
one  the  first  books  of  Gutenberg  and  Faust.  It  was 
the  first  book  printed  from  movable  type.  It  is  beau- 
tifully decorated,  but  you  will  notice  that  only  the 
text  is  printed,  and  that  the  initials  and  marginal  dec- 
orations were  painted  in  by  hand. 

I  think  it  would  be  a  very  good  idea,  and  would 

[13] 


BOOK    C  O  M  PO  S  I  T  I  O  N  — GUSHING 

repay  the  School  of  Printing  and  as  many  of  the 
apprentices  of  other  offices  as  can  do  so,  to  go  to  the 
the  Public  Library  and  look  at  the  old  manuscript  and 
printed  books  displayed  there  in  glass  cases.  There 
is  much  that  you  would  not  understand  about  them, 
but  you  would  get  many  good  ideas  and  cultivate  your 
taste  by  examining  them. 

You  will  probably  see  there  books  which  have  had 
blank  places  left  for  initials,  as  mentioned  before,  and 
the  space  has  not  been  filled  in  by  the  hand  decorator ; 
but  in  the  middle  of  the  blank  space  is  a  small  capital 
letter  printed,  which  was  intended  simply  as  a  guide 
to  the  artist  as  to  what  letter  should  be  drawn  in. 

Among  the  most  helpful  things  to  a  compositor  is 
a  study  of  spelling,  elementary  English  composition, 
and  punctuation  ;  and  for  the  latter  I  know  of  no 
better  or  simpler  or  more  comprehensive  book  than 
Bigelow's  "  Handbook  of  Punctuation."  I  would 
particularly  warn  you  against  attempting  any  use  of 
Wilson's  work  on  Punctuation.  It  is  altogether  too 
complicated  for  practical  use  and  is  more  apt  to  con- 
fuse than  to  assist  the  student.  I  doubt  if  anybody 
but  the  author  ever  really  comprehended  its  appar- 
ently conflicting  rules  and  hair-splitting  exceptions. 
In  my  experience  as  an  apprentice  and  journeyman 
I  found  that  at  the  University  Press,  where  Bigelow's 
system  was  followed,  the  compositors  were  able  to  set 
"  clean  "  proofs  ;  which  was  an  impossibility  at  John 
Wilson's,*  where  the  Wilson  treatise  was  supposed  to 
be  the  guide  for  punctuation. 

I  also  recommend  the  study  of  some  Beginner's 
Latin  book, —  and  so  much  of  some  Greek  grammar 
as  relates  to  the  Greek  alphabet  and  the  accents  and 

*  At  this  time  (1868-1874)  these  places  were  two  separate  establishments. 
[14] 


LECTURE  II  — BOOK    COMPOSITION 

breathings,  which  are  the  marks  you  see  over  Greek 
vowels. 

All  this  is  not  so  much  of  a  task  as  would  appear. 
One  or  two  evenings  spent  in  merely  glancing  over 
the  books  mentioned  will  show  you  how  much  valu- 
able information,  directly  applicable  to  your  work,  can 
be  gained,  and  how  much  your  labors  will  be  simpli- 
fied, and  how  many  unnecessary  errors  you  can  avoid, 
by  a  study  of  these  subjects.  Almost  all  compositors 
run  across  Greek  words  occasionally ;  they  constantly 
run  across  Latin  words.  You  will  find  not  only  that 
you  can  learn  to  set  Greek  quite  easily,  but  the  knowl- 
edge you  gain  by  some  study  of  these  books  will  be 
of  advantage  to  you  in  many  other  ways.  These 
studies  are  also  the  best  preparation  for  proofreading. 

In  the  back  part  of  Webster's  Unabridged  Dic- 
tionary you  will  find  much  useful  information,  partic- 
ularly in  the  section  on  the  signs  used  in  the  various 
sciences.  These  signs  are  classified  as  follows: 

1.  Astronomical  6.  Miscellaneous 

2.  Botanical  7.  Monetary  and  commercial 

3.  Chemical  8.  Musical 

4.  Mathematical  9.  Typographical 

5.  Medical 

Every  compositor  should  familiarize  himself  with 
the  meanings  and  names  of  these  signs,  for  he  is  apt 
to  meet  them  at  any  time  in  his  work,  and  a  knowl- 
edge of  what  they  stand  for  will  be  not  only  helpful 
and  instructive,  but  will  make  much  otherwise  dry 
typesetting  positively  interesting. 

I  would  suggest  to  Mr.  Stewart  that  he  reprint 
from  the  dictionary  this  section  on  signs  for  the  use 
of  his  pupils  and  other  apprentices. 

[15] 


BOOK    COMPOSITION— GUSHING 

Abbreviations  which  are  interesting  but  not  in  com- 
mon use  are  the  following : 

yber  for  September  from  Septem=  7. 

8ber    "    October         "      Octo     =   8. 

gber    "    November     "      Novo    =   9. 

icber  ."December     "      Decem=io. 


Last,  but  not  least,  there  is  no  better  book  for  any 
printer's  study,  be  he  young  or  old,  than  De  Vinne's 
"Correct  Composition." 

When  a  publisher  sends  the  manuscript  of  a  book 
to  the  printer,  he  generally  has  a  fairly  well-defined 
idea  of  what  sort  of  a  book  he  desires  to  produce,  as 
to  size  and  general  appearance,  and  oftentimes  he 
mentions,  as  a  sample  to  be  followed,  some  book  which 
in  type,  size,  and  proportion  of  page,  and  in  other 
details,  meets  his  approval.  But  it  also  often  happens 
that  the  customer  has  not  decided  upon  these  details, 
and  desires  the  benefit  of  the  advice  and  suggestion 
of  his  printer. 

So  I  will  talk  on  some  of  the  everyday  questions 
and  practices  which  confront  a  com- 
positor, and  will  try  to  give  some  simple 
rules  for  their  solution. 


SHAPE    OF    THE    PAGE 

In  the  absence  of  other  directions  for 
determining  the  proportions  of  the  type 
page,  an  old  rule  was  that  the  diagonal 
—  that  is,  from  corner  to  corner  of  the 
page — should  measure  twice  the  width. 

[16] 


3  inches 


LECTURE  II  — BOOK    COMPOSITION 

You  will  find  that  this  rule  will  always  give  a  pleas- 
ingly symmetrical  page. 

Generally,  however,  the  shape  of  the  page  is  deter- 
mined by  the  size  of  the  paper  upon  which  it  is  to  be 
printed ;  and  the  size  of  the  paper  is  made  to  suit 
the  size  and  shape  of  the  book  desired  by  the  customer. 

LEADING    AND    SPACING 

This  is  a  very  important  factor  in  the  making  of  a 
pleasing  page.  A  safe  rule  to  follow  is  to  have  the 
space  between  the  words  correspond  to  the  space 
between  the  lines  ;  that  is.  in  a  page  leaded  with  two- 
point  or  three-point  leads,  the  average  space  between 
words  should  be  an  en-quad;  but,  no  matter  how 
widely  the  lines*  may  be  separated,  the  word-space 
should  never  exceed  an  em-quad.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  solid  page  should  have  an  average  spacing  of  three- 
to-em  spaces.  If  the  page  is  to  be  double  or  triple- 
leaded,  you  should  space  with  an  en-quad  at  first, 
and  increase  (rather  than  decrease)  this  space  when 
necessary  to  fill  out  the  line. 

Lines  of  ordinary  capitals  should  be  spaced  with 
two  three-to-em  spaces.  Fat  or  extended  type  requires 
proportionately  wider  spacing  than  thin  or  condensed 
type.  In  all  cases  the  spaces  between  words  should 
be  about  equal  to  the  average  width  of  the  letters  you 
are  setting  up. 

In  one  minor  matter  I  am  obliged  to  differ  with 
Mr.  De  Vinne,  in  his  "  Correct  Composition,"  and  that 
is  as  regards  his  insistence  on  spacing  such  words 
as  I  Ve,  you  '11,  't  was,  't  was  n't,  't  is,  't  is  n't,  etc., 
instead  of  printing  them  close  ;  as,  I've,  you'll,  'twas, 
'twasn't,  etc.  He  does  not,  however,  advocate  spacing 
don't,  won't,  can't,  shan't,  etc. 


BOOK    C  O  M  PO  S  I  T  I  O  N  — GUSHING 

To  be  sure,  he  provides  that  only  thin  spaces  shall 
be  used  between  the  parts  of  these  words ;  but  even 
then,  in  dialect  matter,  where  they  occur  frequently, 
the  effect  is  not  only  unpleasant  and  confusing  to  the 
eye,  but  the  difficulty  of  reading  is  much  increased 
by  the  unnecessary  separation  of  parts  of  a  word 
which  must  be  pronounced  and  treated  as  one  word. 
And  in  practice  I  find  the  "thin-space"  provision  is 
more  honored  in  the  breach  than  in  the  observance, 
since  even  in  books  printed  at  the  De  Vinne  Press, 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  the  spaces  between  the  parts 
of  these  words  are  as  wide  or  wider  (not  thinner)  than 
the  spaces  between  the  words  themselves.  That  this 
arbitrary  spacing  is  not  demanded  by  the  publishers, 
or  by  the  public  in  general,  is  proved  by  the  fact  that 
in  thirty  years'  experience  as  a  printer  of  books  I  re- 
call but  a  single  instance  of  its  being  insisted  upon, 
and  then  simply  for  the  sake  of  uniformity  with  books 
of  the  same  series  previously  made  by  one  of  the  very 
few  remaining  printers  who  follow  such  practices  as 
printing  V  was  n't  instead  of  ^twasrft,  but  shan't  in- 
stead of  she?  n't.  Why  ? 

SELECTION    OF    TYPE 

Of  late  years  there  has  been  a  tendency  to  use  vary- 
ing styles  of  type  in  the  same  page  — as,  for  instance, 
old-style  running-titles  or  initials  with  modern-faced 
text  type  ;  or  Caslon  with  modernized  old-style,  which 
is  not  so  objectionable.  If  you  wish  to  have  a  really 
harmonious  book  page  —  a  page  which  will  please 
everybody,  they  cannot  tell  just  why  —  you  will  have 
the  whole  page,  from  top  to  bottom,  one  style  of  type, 
and  you  will  avoid  mixed  styles.  You  will  keep  the 
faces  entirely  distinct,  carrying  out  this  principle  of 

[18] 


LECTURE!!  — BOOK   COMPOSITION 

uniformity  of  type  even  to  your  initial  letters.  And 
the  general  shape  of  your  type,  to  secure  perfect  har- 
mony, must  conform  to  the  shape  of  your  page.  The 
plainest  book  faces  produce  the  best  results  in  book 
pages.  But  if  you  have  to  choose  between  fat  and  lean 
type,  remember  to  use  fat  type  for  an  extra  wide  page 
and  thin  type  for  a  narrow  page.  This  applies  to  job 
work  also. 

•      RUNNING    TITLES 

Avoid  startling  effects  and  too  much  prominence.  If 
the  running  title  is  set  up  in  capitals  of  the  text  type, 
or  one  size  smaller,  a  pleasing  result  is  almost  certain  ; 
or  if  lower-case  is  preferred,  use  a  size  larger  (roman 
or  italic)  than  the  text  type,  but  of  the  same  series. 
If  capitals  are  used,  and  the  title  is  short,  a  thin 
space  between  the  letters  will  improve  its  appearance. 

Some  years  ago  an  Englishman  named  Morris,  who 
was  an  artist,  a  writer,  a  poet,  a  student,  and  inci- 
dentally a  socialist,  decided  that  books  were  not  made 
to  suit  him ;  so  he  started  out  to  make  them  to  his 
taste,  and  he  made  some  decided  changes  in  prevail- 
ing customs  in  book-making.  He  designed  his  own 
type,  used  only  hand-made  paper,  and  printed  his 
books  himself  on  a  hand  press.  The  pages  were  very 
closely  set  in  heavy-faced  type,  and  looked  rather 
black ;  but  the  mechanical  execution  was  nearly  per- 
fect. He  had  heavy  decorative  borders  in  the  margins, 
and  in  many  ways  he  imitated  the  old  manuscripts  to 
which  I  have  drawn  your  attention.  His  books  became 
celebrated,  but  they  were  very  expensive.  They  at- 
tracted a  great  deal  of  attention,  and  book-collectors 
now  pay  almost  any  price  for  copies  of  them.  But 

[19] 


BOOK    COMPOSITION  —  GUSHING 

their  merit  was  mostly  in  their  artistic  and  mechan- 
ical execution.  As  books  for  readers  they  were  not 
a  success,  being  too  closely  set  to  be  easily  read,  and 
the  mind  of  the  reader  was  too  apt  to  be  distracted 
from  the  thought  of  the  author  by  the  unusual  typog- 
raphy and  over-decoration  of  the  pages.  A  natural 
result  of  their  success  was  that  a  lot  of  people  tried 
to  imitate  Morris  and  make  "marvellous"  books  ;  but 
most  of  them  only  succeeded  in  making  absurd  books, 
which  had  neither  the  merit  nor  perfect  workmanship 
nor  any  other  creditable  feature  of  Morris's  books. 

The  distinguishing  marks  of  these  books  (by  would- 
be  Morris  imitators)  were  startling  effects  in  running 
titles,  by  the  use  of  very  large  or  odd  or  black  type, 
put  in  unexpected  places ;  half-titles  in  corners  or 
tops  of  pages,  where  you  would  expect  to  find  them 
in  the  centre ;  and  the  use  of  any  old  heavy-faced 
type  for  the  text,  set  as  solid  as  possible,  with  dis- 
proportionately broad  margins —  waste  space  which 
could  much  better  be  utilized  between  the  words  and 
lines  for  the  sake  of  legibility ;  and  many  other  fads 
and  freaks  calculated  to  attract  attention.  It  certainly 
was  "  the  arrogance  of  ignorance  "  in  book-making 
while  the  fad  lasted. 

The  best  evidence  of  the  fact  that  good  taste  and 
harmony  in  printing,  as  well  as  in  other  matters, 
appeal  to  most  people,  is  that  this  era  of  freak  book- 
making  was  doomed  to  an  early  grave,  and  the  art 
of  printing  has  again  returned  to  a  fairly  normal 
condition. 

EXTRACTS    AND    NOTES 

Extracts  —  One  size  smaller  type  and  thinner  lead 
than  text ;  or,  if  text  is  thin  leaded,  set  solid.  If  the 

[20] 


LECTURE!!  — BOOK   COMPOSITION 

text  is  solid,  the  extracts  should  be  set  in  two  sizes 
smaller  type. 

Footnotes  —  Generally  three  sizes  smaller  type  than 
text,  with  thinner  lead ;  and  solid  with  solid  text. 

Cut-in  and  Marginal  Notes — Type  should  generally 
be  one  size  smaller  than  footnotes,  unless  more  prom- 
inence is  desired  ;  in  which  case  some  small  con- 
densed antique  or  boldface  may  be  used.  In  the  case 
of  cut-in  notes  it  is  best  to  set  them  up  in  advance, 
afterwards  placing  them  in  the  text  as  it  is  set  up. 
Do  not  attempt  to  space  out  to  even  lines  in  either 
cut-in  or  marginal  notes,  but  leave  them  uneven  at 
the  right  side. 

BLANK    LINE    AT    BOTTOM    OF    PAGE 

Our  customers  often  do  not  understand  why  printers 
always  put  a  blank  line  at  the  bottom  of  a  page.  This 
blank  line  probably  originated  at  the  time  it  was  the 
custom  to  repeat  the  first  word  of  the  next  page  at 
the  bottom  of  the  previous  page,  and  a  spare  line 
was  necessary  for  that  purpose.  Nowadays  it  is  util- 
ized for  signature  numbers  and  letters,  and  for  folios 
or  page  numbers  when  necessary,  as,  for  instance,  on 
pages  not  carrying  running  titles. 

Another  reason  for  it  is  that  among  all  first-class 
book-printers  it  has  always  been  a  rigid  rule  that  a 
break-line  (that  is,  the  end  line  of  a  paragraph)  must 
not  come  at  the  top  of  the  page,  and  for  that  reason 
it  was  considered  allowable  to  run  it  into  the  blank 
line  at  the  bottom  of  the  page.  But  if  the  break-line 
was  nearly  a  full  line,  it  was  customary  to  go  back  a 
few  lines  and  drive  over  enough  words  to  make 
another  line,  and  then  to  carry  the  two  lines  to  the 
top  of  the  next  page.  That  a  break-line  should  not 

[21] 


BOOK    C  O  M  PO  S  ITI  O  N  — GUSHING 

come  at  the  top  of  the  page  has  always  been  one  of 
the  rules  which  book-printers,  until  recently,  have 
considered  a  part  of  their  printing  religion.  Since 
Monotype  and  Linotype  machines  have  been  used 
for  book-work,  however,  I  regret  to  say  that  this  rule 
is  often  broken. 

THE    USE    OF    INITIALS 

Where  plain  or  ornamental  initials  can  be  appropri- 
ately used,  a  great  deal  of  taste  can  be  shown  in  their 
selection.  If  a  highly  ornamented  initial  is  used,  be 
sure  that  the  strength  of  the  lines  of  the  initial  letter 
is  in  keeping  with  the  face  of  the  text  type.  A  weakly 
defined  initial  letter,  surrounded  and  obscured  by 
a  mass  of  ornamentation,  will  not  look  well  with  a 
strong-faced  text  type,  such  as  the  Scotch  face.  If 
a  plain  two-line  or  three-line  initial  letter  is  used,  it 
should  conform  to  the  shape  of  the  page,  and  to  the 
face  and  shape  of  the  text  type  selected.  The  top  of 
it  should  align  with  the  top  of  the  capital  letters  of 
the  first  line  of  text  type,  and  the  bottom,  if  possible, 
should  align  with  a  line  of  the  text.  While  this  rule  is 
often  broken,  it  is  still  a  breach  of  good  taste  to  use  an 
old-style  initial  letter  with  modern-faced  type,  or  vice 
versa ;  and  nothing  (except  eccentricity)  can  excuse 
the  use  of  an  italic  initial  with  roman  text. 

CARE    IN    JUSTIFICATION    AND    EVEN    SPACING 

The  best  time  to  exercise  this  care  is  while  the  line 
is  in  the  stick ;  and  before  passing  on  to  the  next  line 
you  should  look  it  over  carefully  for  typographical 
errors,  and  then  space  and  justify  it.  This  work  never 
can  be  done  easier  or  better  than  just  at  this  time. 
In  spacing  out  the  line  be  careful  also  to  distribute 

[22] 


LECTURE  II —  BOOK  COMPOSITION 

the  extra  space  equally  between  the  various  words, 
and  not  all  at  one  end  of  the  line,  which,  if  done, 
makes  one  side  of  the  page  look  very  closely  set  and 
the  other  side  correspondingly  open. 

CORRECTING    ON    GALLEY 

If  there  are  only  a  few  simple  alterations  to  make, 
such  as  turning  reversed  letters,  or  substituting  one 
letter  for  another  of  the  same  size,  it  is  only  neces- 
sary to  loosen  the  side  stick  of  the  galley  and  care- 
fully lift  with  a  bodkin  the  letter  to  be  changed.  But, 
as  a  general  thing,  by  far  the  best  plan  is  to  lift  each 
line  requiring  change  into  your  stick.  In  this  way 
you  can  get  perfect  justification,  and  the  corrections 
can  be  made  more  quickly  than  in  any  other  way. 

The  bodkin  is  an  essential  tool  to  the  compositor, 
and  if  carefully  used  will  do  no  harm ;  but  tweezers 
should  never  be  used  to  lift  letters  out  of  a  line. 

IMPOSITION    AND    MARGINS 

(These  subjects  were  illustrated  by  means  of  printed 
and  folded  sheets,  and  on  the  blackboard.) 

PUNCTUATION 

This  is  so  lengthy  a  subject  that  I  can  but  touch  upon 
it  here.  The  other  day  I  noted  an  amusing  instance, 
which  shows  how  necessary  some  punctuation  is  at 
times.  In  a  large  Boston  store  the  inscription  under 
a  picture  of  Admiral  Dewey  and  Captain  Bradley  at 
Manila  reads,  "  Fire  Bradley  when  you  are  ready." 
History  gives  no  particular  reason  why  Bradley  should 
have  been  "  fired  "  on  that  occasion.  Of  course,  the 
inscription  should  have  read,  "  Fire,  Bradley,  when 
you  are  ready." 

[23] 


BOOK    CO  M  PO  S  ITI  O  N  — GUSHING 

One  other  point  on  this  subject.  The  question  often 
arises  in  the  mind  of  the  compositor  as  to  which  side 
of  the  punctuation  mark  he  should  place  the  quota- 
tion marks.  The  best  rule  I  can  give  for  his  guidance 
is  this :  When  only  part  of  the  sentence  is  quoted, 
the  final  quotation  marks  should  precede  the  punctu- 
ation mark ;  but  if  the  whole  sentence  is  quoted,  the 
final  quotation  marks  should  follow  the  punctuation 
mark.  For  instance : 

Did  you  mean  it  when  you  said  "  He  is  a  brute  "  ? 
And  he  said,  "Why  do  you  ask  me  this  question  ? " 

The  question  to  be  decided  is,  do  the  punctuation 
marks  apply  to  the  whole  sentence  or  to  only  so 
much  of  it  as  is  quoted  ?  The  above  applies  where  the 
punctuation  marks  are  either  the  colon,  semicolon, 
exclamation  point,  or  interrogation  point;  but  it  does 
not  apply  to  the  period  and  comma,  which  in  all  cases 
should  precede  the  final  quotation  marks. 

LENGTH    OF    LINES    IN    HEADINGS 

Do  not  feel  obliged  to  fill  out  the  first  line  and  turn 
over  only  a  small  part  of  the  heading,  as  : 


but  rather  divide  it  as  follows : 


AMERICAN    AND    ENGLISH    SPELLING 

The  difference  between  American  and  English  spell- 
ing   is  not  great,  and  is  mainly  in  such  words  as 

[24] 


LECTUREII  — BOOK   COMPOSITION 

honor,  favor,  etc.  The  English  custom  is  to  spell  these 
words  with  the  u,  as  honour,  favour,  etc.  An  English- 
man once  told  me  that  an  honor  would  not  be  an  honour 
to  him  without  the  u.  The  American  ize  becomes  ise 
in  English  spelling. 

It  is  a  rather  interesting  fact  that  Americans  are 
apparently  not  at  all  sensitive  about  these  differences, 
and  will  generally  accept  either  spelling;  but  the 
English  people  are,  and  few  English  publishers  will 
accept  American  books  unless  they  are  printed  with 
the  English  spelling.  So  it  is  often  necessary  to  go 
through  a  set  of  American  plates  and  change  them 
accordingly  for  the  English  market. 

Now,  boys,  in  closing  I  want  to  give  you  a  little 
heart-to-heart  talk. 

Just  in  proportion  as  you  put  your  earnest  and  best 
efforts  into  your  work,  just  so  far  will  you  meet  with 
success.  Remember  there  is  always  plenty  of  room  at 
the  top ;  and  remember,  also,  that  you  are  the  natural 
successors  of  the  employing  printers  of  to-day,  and 
that  if  you  will  work  faithfully  and  perfect  yourself 
in  the  branch  of  business  you  elect  to  follow,  you  are 
bound  to  succeed  and  prosper. 

Theories  alone  will  not  help  you,  but  a  superior 
knowledge  of,  and  application  to,  your  trade  will  land 
you  in  the  best  positions.  Never  in  the  history  of  the 
world  has  there  been  so  good  an  opportunity  as  now 
to  realize  on  merit. 

Now  is  the  time  to  decide  whether  you  will  neglect 
your  opportunities  and  be  one  atom  in  a  cloud  of 
dust  blown  hither  and  thither  by  the  breath  of  cir- 
cumstance, —  sometimes  called  "the  army  of  the 
unemployed," —  or  whether  you  will  be  a  master  of 

[25] 


BOOK    COMPOSITION  — GUSHING 

your  trade,  and  thereby  the  "master  of  your  own 
destiny" —  self-respecting,  independent,  and  always 
in  demand. 


[26] 


Ill 

HOW    TYPE    IS    MADE 


HOW    TYPE    IS    MADE 

By  J.  W.  P  H  i  N  N  E  Y,  Manager  American  Type 
Founders  Co.,  Boston  ::  ::  ::  ,  LECTURE  No.  Ill 

Owing  to  another  engagement,  Mr.  Phinney  could  not  be  present  on  the 
date  of  the  third  lecture,  and  his  paper  upon  the  subject  was  read  by  Mr. 
Geo.  H.  Ellis.  The  following  is  a  brief  summary. 

IT  was  probably  at  Mentz  that  the  invention  of 
movable  types  was  made,  and  without  doubt  Gut- 
enburg  was  the  inventor.  The  early  printers  were 
not  only  printers  and  binders,  but  also  type  founders. 
They  took  for  their  models  the  styles  of  the  best 
manuscripts  of  the  period,  and  the  work  of  Gutenburg 
and  his  assistant  SchcefTer  has  never  been  excelled. 
It  was  only  under  great  difficulties  that  they  worked, 
yet  it  is  almost  impossible  for  one  to  tell  the  printed 
books  from  the  manuscript. 

Black  letter  was  the  first  face  that  was  cut,  of  which 
the  German  type  is  the  direct  descendant.  It  was 
Jensen  that  first  made  a  success  of  the  Roman  letter 
which  is  now  used  everywhere  except  in  Germany. 
Some  of  the  type  founders  who  have  left  their  impress 
upon  type  fashions  are  Van  Dyke,  Elzevir,  and  the 
English  founder,  Caslon.  Benjamin  Franklin  was  the 
first  type  founder  in  America. 

Following  this  brief  history  of  type  founding  was 
an  outline  of  the  process  of  putting  a  new  type  face 
upon  the  market.  It  is  first  designed  by  the  artist, 
and  after  the  drawings  are  accepted  they  are  sent  to 
the  matrix-maker,  who  makes  reproductions  of  the 
face  sunk  in  bars  of  hard  metal ;  these  matrices  are 
then  placed  in  a  mould  and  the  types  are  cast. 

It  seems  a  simple  process,  but  it  is  exactly  the 
reverse,  for  great  care  must  be  taken,  experiments 

[33] 


HOW     TYPE     IS     MADE  —  PHINNEY 

made,  fonts  cast — perhaps  to  be  thrown  away  and  a 
fresh  start  made.  The  expense  of  cutting  and  adjust- 
ing the  different  sizes  of  a  new  face  of  type  is  some- 
times $10,000.  The  type  foundries  are  willing  to 
spend  large  sums  of  money  to  produce  satisfactory 
results,  not  only  in  their  type  faces  but  also  in  their 
specimen  books.  One  of  the  foundries  spent  $70,000 
on  one  of  their  specimen  books. 

A  peculiar  thing  about  type  founding  is  that  there 
have  been  no  radical  improvements  made  in  type- 
casting, although  improved  machinery  has  been  in- 
vented, so  that  greater  speed  can  be  obtained  in 
casting;  yet  the  mould  has  remained  practically  the 
same,  and  the  casting,  though  now  done  by  machin- 
ery, yet  follows  the  old  hand  principle. 

Mr.  Phinney  urged  the  preservation  of  type  found- 
ers' specimen  books  as  representing  a  vast  amount  of 
care  and  expense  in  preparation  and  making,  and  of 
great  value  in  showing  the  growth  and  development 
of  the  printing  and  type  founding  arts.  The  Ameri- 
can Type  Founders  Company,  he  said,  has  completed 
a  fireproof  apartment  in  its  foundry  at  Jersey  City  as 
a  typographical  museum  for  the  preservation  of  old 
specimen  books  of  type,  and  also  typographical  books 
exemplifying  the  art  and  growth  of  printing  and  type 
founding. 


[34] 


LECTURE  III  — HO  W    TYPE    IS    MADE 

At  the  close  of  the  reading  of  Mr.  Phinney's  paper,  Mr.  Geo.  C.  Creighton, 
foreman  of  the  matrix  department  of  the  Boston  foundry  of  the  American 
Type  Founders  Company,  gave  an  informal  talk  on  the  mechanical  opera- 
tions of  modern  type-making.  He  exhibited  a  number  of  moulds  and  matrices 
of  different  styles,  together  with  casts  made  therefrom,  demonstrating  the 
adjustments  of  the  different  parts  and  the  operations  of  casting.  The  follow- 
ing are  some  of  the  points  explained  by  Mr.  Creighton. 

THERE  are  two  chief  things  required  to  cast  a 
type  —  a  mould,  in  which  the  body  is  cast; 
and  a  matrix,  which  faces  one  side  of  the 
mould  and  has  in  it  a  depressed  image  of  the  letter 
to  be  cast.  The  mould  is  made  in  two  movable  sec- 
tions, which  are  fitted  together  in  such  a  manner  as 
to  close  up  before  the  cast  is  made  and  open  suf- 
ficiently to  release  the  type  after  casting.  It  is  made 
of  the  finest  steel  and  requires  the  attention  of  skilled 
workmen  in  its  construction.  Owing  to  the  high  tem- 
perature to  which  it  is  subjected,  every  piece  of  steel 
(a  complete  mould  usually  is  made  of  twelve  or  fif- 
teen separate  pieces)  must  be  carefully  hardened  and 
tempered,  and  allowance  must  be  made  for  expansion 
and  contraction  of  its  parts  in  such  a  manner  as  not 
to  affect  in  the  slightest  the  accuracy  of  the  type 
which  is  cast  in  it.  Accuracy  in  every  part  is  vitally 
important.  Each  piece  is  carefully  ground  to  a  vel- 
vety smoothness  and  the  parts  of  each  section  fast- 
ened solidly  by  means  of  steel  screws.  The  weight  of 
a  mould  varies  from  one  to  three  pounds,  according 
to  the  size  of  type  to  be  made  in  it. 

The  matrix  covers  an  opening  on  one  side  of  the 
mould,  and  on  the  opposite  side  (which  is  the  foot  of 
the  type)  is  an  opening  through  which  the  melted 
metal  is  injected.  To  insure  a  solid  body  and  clear, 
sharp  face,  this  opening,  or  jet-hole,  must  be  in  right 
proportion  to  the  size  of  the  type  to  be  cast. 

[35] 


HOW   TYPE    IS    MADE  — CREIGHTON 

A  type  mould  is  made  for  a  single  size  of  body,  but 
is  made  adjustable  sideways  to  correspond  to  the 
different  widths  of  letters  of  a  font.  One  mould  may 
be  used  to  cast  all  the  characters  of  a  font,  or  of  any 
number  of  fonts  of  the  same  size  body,  by  simply 
changing  matrices  for  the  faces.  Each  mould  must 
be  not  only  true  for  the  type-body  it  is  to  cast,  but  it 
must  agree  exactly  with  every  other  mould  for  the 
same  size  of  body,  because,  in  a  large  foundry,  a 
number  of  moulds  may  be  used  for  casting  the  same 
size  of  type. 

MATRICES  MADE  BY  DIFFERENT  METHODS 

As  the  matrix  is  the  pattern  of  the  type-face  to  be 
cast,  it  will  be  seen  that  this  is  the  really  important 
operation  in  modern  type-founding.  Type-faces  are 
many,  and  every  week  new  ones  are  appearing.  With 
the  production  of  each  new  letter  or  character  a  new 
matrix  is  required,  and  with  the  every-day  use  of 
those  styles  in  popular  demand  many  are  injured  or 
destroyed  and  must  be  renewed. 

Matrices  are  made  by  three  different  methods. 
The  older  method  is  by  first  cutting  the  letter  on  the 
end  of  a  small  bar  of  soft  steel,  which,  when  the  let- 
ter has  been  perfected,  is  hardened,  and  is  then  used 
to  stamp  into  an  oblong  plate  of  copper.  This  piece 
of  copper,  with  brightly  burnished  surface,  is  held 
firmly  in  a  block,  and  the  steel  punch  driven  into 
it  with  great  force.  This  "  strike,"  as  it  is  called,  is 
the  matrix  in  the  rough.  When  it  is  smoothed  down 
on  its  face  (which  is  now  more  or  less  uneven  and 
out  of  shape  around  the  sunken  impression),  with  its 
sides  trued  up  and  finished,  it  is  ready  to  be  placed 
in  the  mould.  This  method  of  making  matrices  has 

[36] 


LECTURE  III  — HOW    TYPE   IS    MADE 

been  the  one  commonly  employed  for  standard  faces 
of  body  type  and  faces  in  large  demand,  as,  after  the 
steel  punch  is  made,  it  is  the  quickest  way  of  pro- 
ducing a  matrix. 

The  electrotype  method  consists,  first,  in  securing 
a  perfect  pattern  of  the  letter.  This  pattern  may  be 
engraved  by  hand  or  by  mechanical  means,  or  it  may 
be  a  perfect  type -face  already  cast.  A  brass  plate 
(i^  to  2^  inches  long,  ^  to  i^  inches  wide,  and 
i^  inch  thick)  with  a  square  hole  near  one  end,  is 
then  provided,  and  the  pattern  letter  so  fitted  in  this 
opening  that  it  will  have  some  open  space  around  its 
face.  A  number  of  these  brass  plates,  with  their  pat- 
tern letters,  are  then  arranged  and  fastened  side  by 
side  in  a  "flask."  This  flask  is  next  entirely  covered 
with  wax,  except  at  the  square  openings  in  the  brass 
plates.  These  openings,  containing  the.  faces  of  the 
pattern  letters,  are  thus  exposed,  and  the  flask  is  then 
hung  on  a  rod  in  an  electro  battery.  Here  the  copper, 
held  in  solution  in  minute  particles,  is  deposited  on 
the  exposed  portions  of  the  flask  until  it  forms  a  thick 
shell  and  fills  up  the  spaces  between  the  sides  of  the 
square  and  the  pattern.  In  a  few  days  (often  weeks, 
according  to  the  size  of  the  matrix),  the  flask  is  taken 
out,  the  wax  removed  and  the  pattern  letter  with- 
drawn from  its  copper  bed,  leaving  a  perfect  image 
in  copper  securely  fitted  in  the  brass  plate.  This 
brass  plate  is  now  an  unfinished  matrix,  and  requires 
to  be  smoothed  off  on  all  sides,  reinforced  by  an- 
other brass  strip  riveted  on  its  back,  and  finally 
fitted  for  the  mould. 

The  third  method  of  making  a  matrix  is  with  a 
wonderful  modern  matrix-cutting  machine,  invented 
by  Mr.  L.  B.  Benton  and  used  exclusively  by  the 

[37] 


HOW    TYPE    IS    MADE  — CREIGHTON 

American  Type  Founders  Company.  In  the  upper 
part  of  this  machine  is  placed  a  bar  of  metal  com- 
position—  the  future  matrix.  Above  this,  pointing 
downward  at  the  proper  position,  is  a  rapidly-revolv- 
ing hardened  steel  needle  which  cuts  the  design  in 
the  matrix.  The  cutting  needle  is  held  in  the  center 
of  a  finely-adjusted,  movable  steel  frame.  This  frame, 
with  its  revolving  needle-point,  is  controlled  in  all  its 
motions,  horizontally  and  laterally,  by  a  rod  sus- 
pended below  ;  by  moving  the  lower  end  of  this  rod 
with  the  hand  over  a  given  diagram  all  its  motions 
are  duplicated  on  a  much  smaller  scale  by  the  cut- 
ting needle  above.  It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  thing 
necessary  to  produce  any  design  in  a  matrix  is  a 
pattern  to  be  placed  on  the  lower  shelf  of  the  ma- 
chine, under  the  point  of  the  suspended  rod. 

This  pattern,  however,  must  be  specially  prepared. 
The  design  is  drawn  in  outline  in  a  form  enlarged 
to  nearly  six  inches.  This  outline  drawing  is  then 
placed  on  a  pantagraph  machine  in  which  is  a  sheet 
of  metal  covered  with  a  film  of  wax,  and  the  outline 
is  cut  in  the  wax  with  a  sharp  point.  This  wax  plate 
is  then  used  as  a  mould  from  which  an  electro  is 
made,  producing  an  electroplate  with  the  outline  of 
the  design  in  high  relief.  When  this  pattern  is  placed 
in  the  cutting  machne  a  small  hardened  steel  disc  on 
the  bottom  of  the  tracing  rod  is  guided  between  the 
raised  outlines,  the  result  being  a  miniature  cutting 
of  the  pattern  in  the  composition  bar  above  —  the 
matrix.  One  pattern  may  be  used  to  cut  matrices  for 
several  different  sizes  of  the  same  letter  by  simply 
adjusting  the  machine  to  the  size  desired.  All  these 
operations  in  producing  a  matrix  are  mechanical, 
and  may  be  done  quickly  and  economically. 

[38] 


LECTURE  III— HOW    TYPE   IS    MADE 

There  are  several  things  about  a  matrix  which  re- 
quire skill  and  accuracy  on  the  part  of  expert  work- 
men. The  outer  surface  must  be  in  exact  parallel 
with  the  face  of  the  sunken  letter,  so  that  the  face 
may  be  absolutely  level  on  the  top  of  the  type-body. 
All  the  matrices  of  a  font,  and  of  all  fonts  cast  in  the 
same  mould,  must  be  of  the  same  depth  from  the  sur- 
face to  the  sunken  face.  Each  matrix  must  be  fitted 
so  that  it  leaves  the  face  standing  exactly  upright, 
with  proper  shoulder  on  each  side,  and  on  a  true  line 
with  all  other  letters  in  the  font. 

When  it  is  understood  that  the  matrix-fitter,  as  well 
as  the  mould-maker,  divides  an  inch  into  ten  thou- 
sand parts  and  uses  delicate  measuring  instruments 
which  detect  the  difference  between  one  of  these  parts 
and  two  of  them,  it  may  be  realized  what  painstaking 
precision  and  minute  calculation  are  necessary  to  pro- 
duce a  finished  matrix. 

CASTING  MACHINES 

The  matrix  and  mould  being  completed,  they  are 
then  attached  to  the  casting  machine.  The  casting 
machine  consists,  primarily,  of  a  pot,  in  which  the 
type  metal  is  kept  heated  to  a  fluid  state  over  a  small 
gas  furnace.  Above  and  in  the  center  of  this  metal 
pot  is  a  rod  with  a  spring  attachment  which  at  each 
operation  of  the  machine  acts  as  a  plunger  to  force 
a  small  stream  of  hot  metal  through  a  side  aperture 
into  the  jet-hole  of  the  mould.  After  the  casting,  the 
two  parts  of  the  mould  separate  slightly,  the  matrix 
is  drawn  away  from  the  face  of  the  type,  and  the  cast 
is  moved  out ;  then  the  mould  and  matrix  close  to- 
gether again  and  the  operation  is  repeated.  Cold 
water  or  air  is  circulated  near  the  mould  to  keep  an 

[39] 


HOW    TYPE    IS    MADE  — CREIGHTON 

even  temperature  and  prevent  overheating.  The  ma- 
trix for  one  character  only  is  placed  in  the  machine 
and  when  enough  types  have  been  cast,  it  is  taken 
out  and  replaced  by  another,  the  change  usually 
requiring  but  a  few  moments. 

There  are  several  kinds  of  type-casting  machines 
in  use,  such  as  hand,  steam,  and  automatic.  The 
older  of  these  machines  is  the  hand  caster,  which  is 
operated  by  a  small  wheel  with  a  handle  attached. 
This  is  now  used  for  small  fonts  of  large  types,  and 
for  casting  sorts.  Large  type  cannot  be  cast  as  fast 
as  small  sizes ;  the  mould  must  remain  closed  longer 
for  the  metal  to  cool,  it  must  open  wider  to  eject 
the  cast,  and  the  whole  operation  generally  is  more 
deliberate. 

Steam  casters  are  operated  by  mechanical  power 
(originally  steam  power,  thus  called  steam  casters) 
and,  being  faster,  are  used  for  casting  smaller  sizes 
of  type  in  large  quantities,  such  as  roman  faces  for 
body  type,  etc. 

When  type  is  cast  by  the  hand  machines  it  is  still 
unfinished,  as  the  piece  of  metal  called  the  jet,  which 
cooled  in  the  opening  of  the  mould,  still  adheres  to 
the  bottom  of  each  type.  This  jet  is  broken  off  by 
hand,  the  types  are  set  in  long  lines,  and  fastened  in 
a  grooved  channel,  face  down.  A  small  plane  smooths 
away  the  irregular  surface  caused  by  breaking  the  jet, 
leaving  a  shallow  groove  on  the  bottom  of  each  type 
and  allowing  it  to  set  on  its  feet.  The  types  also  have 
slight  burrs  and  sharp  edges  of  metal  which  must  be 
rubbed  off  before  they  are  ready  for  inspection  and 
the  font-room.  Type  cast  on  the  older  styles  of  steam 
machines  also  required  the  jet  to  be  broken  off  after- 
ward ;  on  the  later  machines  this  was  done  by  a  little 

[40] 


LECTURE  III  — HO  W    TYPE   IS    MADE 

device  on  the  machine,  though  the  final  finishing  of 
the  type  is  done  afterward  by  other  operations. 

Kerned  types,  or  those  which  have  parts  of  the  face 
overhanging  the  body,  like  some  italics,  scripts,  etc., 
must  be  finished  by  a  special  method. 

These  operations,  when  type  comes  from  machines 
of  the  kind  just  described,  are  done  mostly  by  hand, 
with  the  aid  of  a  polishing  stone  or  a  small  dressing 
wheel. 

On  the  automatic  casting  machine,  which  is  the 
modern  method  of  casting  type,  the  breaking  of  the 
jet,  rubbing,  dressing,  etc.,  are  all  accomplished  auto- 
matically on  the  machine,  the  types  coming  out  in  a 
continuous  line  practically  ready  for  the  compositor's 
case.  A  clear  understanding  of  the  operation  of  these 
machines,  together  with  the  many  scientific  and  tech- 
nical problems  in  the  making  of  type,  can  only  be 
learned  by  a  visit  to  the  foundry, 

Types  are  cast  one  at  a  time,  but  they  may  be  cast 
quickly  ;  sizes  of  six-point  or  eight-point  are  cast  at 
the  rate  of  one  hundred  in  a  minute  on  these  modern 
machines.  The  larger  the  type  the  slower  it  must  be 
cast. 

The  height  of  type  in  this  country  is — well,  about 
an  inch — but  strictly  it  is  .918  of  an  inch.  You  who 
are  pressmen  and  have  to  make  ready  a  form  on  the 
press  know  how  necessary  it  is  for  the  type-founder 
to  adhere  strictly  to  the  standard  of  height.  Some  one 
has  asked  how  or  why  this  height  was  fixed  for  a 
standard.  I  have  heard  the  story  told  that  many  years 
ago  a  number  of  English  type-founders  were  in  con- 
sultation to  agree  upon  a  height  for  type,  so  that 
printers,  having  the  product  of  any  of  their  foundries, 
could  use  the  types  together  in  printing.  They  came 


HOW    TYPE    IS    MADE  — CREIGHTON 

to  a  practical  agreement  that  the  height  should  be 
that  of  the  English  shilling  —  or  eleven  twelfths  of 
an  English  inch.  As  the  first  fonts  of  type  used  in 
this  country  came  from  England,  our  first  American 
type  founders  naturally  made  theirs  the  same  height 
as  those  already  in  use. 

The  composition  of  type  metal  is  a  mixture  of  lead, 
tin,  antimony,  with  sometimes  a  small  addition  of  cop- 
per. Lead  forms  the  chief  part  of  all  type  metal.  It 
melts  and  fuses  easily  with  other  metals,  casts  with 
a  smooth  surface  in  all  parts  of  the  mould,  and  shrinks 
very  little  in  cooling ;  but  lead  alone  is  too  soft  for 
the  service  required  of  printing  type.  Antimony  is 
put  in  to  give  hardness,  and  tin  is  added  to  give  tough- 
ness. Tin  also  serves  to  solder  the  other  metals.  A 
small  quantity  of  copper  is  added  to  give  still  greater 
toughness.  Other  metals  have  at  times  been  used,  but 
with  little  success.  The  type  metal  used  for  smaller 
sizes  is  much  harder  than  that  used  for  larger  sizes, 
the  softness  gradually  increasing  with  the  size  of  type. 
.  Scripts  and  faces  with  delicate  lines  are  usually  cast 
with  metal  slightly  harder  than  that  used  for  normal 
or  heavy  faces. 

SPECIAL  MOULDS,  ETC. 

You  will  often  see  large  metal  types  cast  with  hol- 
low spaces,  or  cores,  through  the  body  from  side  to 
side.  One  advantage  of  this  is  to  reduce  the  weight 
of  very  large  pieces  of  type  metal.  So  long  as  the  face 
of  the  type  is  perfect  and  it  is  properly  supported 
to  give  a  solid  impression,  any  excess  metal  may  well 
be  saved.  Also,  the  smaller  the  quantity  of  metal 
required  to  fill  the  mould,  provided  there  is  no  undue 
obstruction  to  inject  it,  the  smoother  and  more  solid 

[42] 


LECTURE  III  — HO  W    TYPE   IS    MADE 

the  cast  will  be.  Types  of  this  kind  are  cast  in  spe 
cial  moulds,  the  particular  feature  of  which  is  one  or 
two  polished  rods  fitted  to  slide  through  one  side  of 
the  mould  and  project  into  the  interior.  When  the 
mould  is  closed  and  the  rods  pushed  in,  the  liquid 
metal  is  cast  and  allowed  to  remain  till  it  hardens ; 
then  the  rods  are  withdrawn,  after  which  the  mould 
is  opened  and  the  type  ejected  as  from  the  ordinary 
type  mould. 

Types  mortised  on  the  sides  or  on  the  corners  may 
be  cast  in  the  ordinary  style  of  mould  which  has  a 
piece  of  steel  fitted  to  the  corresponding  part  of  the 
interior. 

Types  that  have  mortises  cast  in  the  middle,  such 
as  hollow  ornaments  for  initial  letters,  etc.,  are  cast 
in  ordinary  square  moulds,  but  with  matrices  which 
have  attached  to  their  face  a  piece  of  steel  corre- 
sponding to  the  size  of  the  mortise. 

Other  devices  in  moulds  and  special  matrices  are 
frequently  required  to  meet  demands  of  modern  type 
founding — and  all  this,  you  will  understand,  that  the 
type  founders  may  set  before  the  modern  printer  fresh 
designs  and  economical  utilities  for  the  prosecution 
of  his  work. 


[431 


IV 

MACHINE   COMPOSITION 


MACHINE   COMPOSITION 

The  Linotype,  by  J.  D.  MONTROSS.  : :  The  Lanston 
Monotype,  by  ROBT.  W.  SWIFT  : :  LECTURE  No.  IV 

I   AM  not  going  to  make  any  apologies  for  reading 
my  so-called  "  talk  "  from  manuscript.     I  have 
two  good  reasons  for  doing  it.      Having  written 
it,  I  can  now  talk  faster,  so  you  will  get  more  for  your 
money ;  again,  I  want  to  cover  my  topic,  as  some  of 
you,  I  hope  all,  may  want  to  write  for  one  or  all  of 
the  prizes,  and  if  I  depended  on  my  memory  I  might 
stray  from  my  subject,  —  the  Linotype. 

While  I  wish  to  devote  most  of  the  time  allotted  to 
me  in  telling  of  the  Linotype,  perhaps  a  few  minutes 
spent  with  you  on  the  historical  part  of  the  general 
subject  of  type-setting  machines  will  be  interesting 
as  well  as  instructive. 

You  are  all  more  or  less  familiar  with  the  printing 
business  ;  you  know  what  type  is  —  I  know  you  have 
heard  here  what  it  is,  how  it  is  made,  and  what  it 
means  to  use  it. 

HISTORICAL  REVIEW 

During  a  period  of  some  four  hundred  years  — 
that  is,  from  the  time  that  movable  type  was  first 
used  until  the  first  patent  for  a  type-setting  machine 
was  filed  —  there  is  no  telling  how  many  minds  con- 
ceived the  idea  that  the  drudgery  of  setting  type  by 
hand  might  be  relieved,  or  entirely  done  away,  by 
machinery;  the  very  fact  that  a  patent  was  filed 
shows  that  at  least  one  person  had  the  matter  in 
mind,  and  little  did  he  or  they  realize  that  they  were 
struggling  with  a  problem  that  would  be  commer- 
cially unsolved  at  this  late  day.  The  object  then 
was  to  make  a  commercial  machine  that  would  set 

[47] 


MACHINE  COMPOSITION— THE  LINOTYPE 

foundry-type,  justify  the  lines  and  automatically  dis- 
tribute it.  Be  that  as  it  may  (and  here's  another  one 
for  Boston),  Dr.  William  Church  of  this  city  was  the 
first  to  file  letters  patent  for  a  type-setting  machine. 
The  patent  was  filed  in  England  in  1822.  The 
machine  consisted  of  a  large  wooden  frame  in  which 
was  arranged  channels  containing  type.  A  key- 
board was  connected  with  the  channels.  On  touching 
a  key-button  a  type  was  ejected  onto  a  plate  where 
it  was  dropped  into  a  tube.  The  type  was  removed 
from  this  tube  and  justified  into  lines  by  hand. 
Distribution  was  by  hand.  The  only  power  used 
was  a  clock  mechanism. 

You  see,  from  the  first  there  was  little  difficulty  in 
setting  —  the  problem  of  justifying  the  lines  and  dis- 
tributing the  type  was  yet  to  be  solved. 

For  twenty  years  little  progress  was  made ;  but 
early  in  the  i84o's  Young  and  Dalcambre,  also  Clay 
and  Rosenberg,  each  brought  out  a  machine.  Both 
were  decided  improvements  on  Dr. Church's  machine; 
indeed,  Clay  and  Rosenberg's  machine  had  a  dis- 
tributor. It  worked  just  the  reverse  of  the  compos- 
itor —  the  operator  would  read  the  line  and  then 
spell  it  out  on  the  key-board.  A  pressure  device, 
actuated  by  weights,  pushed  the  lines  forward. 

From  this  time  on,  every  year  or  two  saw  a  new 
composing  machine.  A  Mr.  Gaubert.  an  Englishman, 
in  the  early  4o's  conceited  the  idea  of  distributing 
type  by  means  of  special  nicks ;  and  about  ten  years 
later,  Mr.  Sorenson,  a  Swede,  brought  out  a  machine 
which  included  this  scheme  of  distribution.  The 
machine  consisted  of  two  cylinders,  one  above  the 
other.  The  upper  cylinder  rotated  and  contained  in 
channels  the  type  to  be  distributed ;  when  the  nicks 

[48] 


LECTURE  IV— M  A  C  H  I  N  E  COMPOSITION 

in  the  type  matched  the  combinations  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  channel  to  the  lower  cylinder  it  would 
fall  into  the  proper  channel.  This  machine  was  very 
similar  to  the  machine  invented  by  Joseph  Thome 
and  patented  in  1880,  which  is  still  in  use  and  sold 
today  under  the  name  of  the  Simplex. 

The  first  United  States  patent  on  a  composing 
machine  was  granted  to  W.  H.  Mitchell  of  Brooklyn, 
N.  Y.,  in  1853.  Mr.  Mitchell's  machine  had  a  distrib- 
utor as  well  as  a  composing  machine,  and  although  a 
number  were  used  commercially  they  were  not  really 
successful.  During  the  next  twenty  years  many  com- 
posing machines  were  patented  here  and  abroad,  but 
none  was  good  enough  to  be  put  into  general  use.  The 
year  1872  seems  to  have  been  the  turning  point.  In 
that  year  the  Burr  machine  was  brought  out.  It  was 
the  most  satisfactory  machine  produced  up  to  this  time 
and  actually  went  into  printing  offices  for  commercial 
use.  There  are  some  of  them  in  use  to-day.  The 
name  of  the  machine  was  afterwards  changed  to  the 
Empire,  the  name  by  which  it  is  now  known.  This 
machine  consists  of  three  cases,  each  containing 
twenty-eight  channels  of  type.  Back  of  the  foot  of 
each  channel  is  a  steel  pusher ;  when  the  key  button 
is  depressed  the  bottom  type  is  pushed  forward  and 
assembled  until  a  line  is  formed ;  the  line  is  then 
justified  by  hand,  usually  by  a  second  operator.  A 
very  neat  and  convenient  arrangement  for  spacing  is 
provided.  The  spaces  are  stored  in  channels ;  the 
operator  has  only  to  pinch  the  thumb  pieces  at  the 
end  of  the  channel  containing  the  desired  space,  when 
the  space  in  between  his  fingers. 

The  machine  has  an  excellent  distributor ;  a  galley 
of  dead  matter  is  placed  in  the  machine  and  a  line 

[49] 


MACHINE  COMPOSITION— THE  LINOTYPE 

at  a  time  is  lifted  and  passed  along  a  series  of  feel- 
ers ;  the  type,  being  specially  nicked,  is  placed  by 
the  feelers  in  its  proper  channel. 

The  year  1872  brought  more,  for  in  that  year 
James  W.  Paige  began  experimenting  on  what  proved 
to  be  the  most  ingenious  and  marvelous  type-setting 
machine  ever  invented.  I  am  always  so  impressed 
with  this  machine  that  I  will  squander  a  moment  or 
two  of  the  Linotype's  time  in  telling  you  of  it.  By 
the  way,  this  was  the  machine  that  Mark  Twain 
"backed  "  to  the  extent  of  $265,000  and  he  doesn't 
see  the  joke  yet.  It  took  fifteen  years  of  experiment- 
ing, or  until  1887,  to  build  a  complete  machine.  Five 
or  six  years  later  a  second  machine  was  built,  then 
re-built,  then  after  some  $2,000,000  had  been  spent, 
everything  was  sold  to  the  Linotype  Company  for  a 
mere  song.  But  the  machine  —  it  was  nine  feet  long, 
weighed  over  three  tons,  and  contained  some  18,000 
parts.  The  keyboard,  containing  109  characters,  was 
the  result  of  ten  years  of  faithful  study.  It  was  so 
arranged  that  combinations  of  letters  an.d  syllables 
most  frequently  used  could  be  struck  simultaneously  ; 
thus  whole  words  could  be  assembled  by  one  stroke 
of  the  hand.  An  operator  with  a  few  weeks  training 
could  set  up  10,000  ems  an  hour;  what  the  capacity 
of  the  machine  would  have  been  in  the  hands  of  an 
expert  is  hard  to  tell  —  perhaps  20,000  ems  or  so  an 
hour.  The  scheme  of  the  machine  was  to  set  foundry 
type,  justify,  and  afterwards  distribute  it.  You  may 
recall  I  mentioned  in  the  beginning  that  these  three 
things  were  necessary  to  make  a  type-setting  machine 
that  could  be  commercially  successful.  All  the  oper- 
ator had  to  do  was  to  manipulate  the  keyboard.  At 
the  end  of  each  word  a  space  key  was  struck  —  at 

[50] 


LECTURE  IV— M  A  C  H  I  N  E   COMPOSITION 

the  end  of  each  line  a  line  key  was  struck ;  the  oper- 
ator went  right  on  setting  up  the  next  line.  The  ma- 
chine measured  each  word  and  passed  the  line  to  the 
justifier,  where  the  proper  spaces  to  justify  the  line 
were  inserted  and  the  line  passed  along  to  a  receiv- 
ing galley.  All  this  time,  in  as  cool  a  manner  as  you 
please  the  machine  was  automatically  doing  the  most 
remarkable  distributing  stunt  you  can  imagine.  Up 
to  three  galleys  of  dead  matter  could  be  placed  in 
the  machine  at  a  time ;  line  by  line  it  was  forwarded 
to  a  testing  device  and  every  defective  type  discarded. 
Next,  another  device  removed  any  turned  or  inverted 
type  ;  this  device  also  removed  any  sorts  which  were 
not  in  the  keyboard,  such  as  accents,  special  char- 
acters, etc.  The  type  that  stood  inspection  —  wasn't 
worn,  battered,  nicked  or  less  than  type  high — was  put 
into  its  proper  channel,  the  spaces  going  to  their  re- 
spective places.  This  distributor  had  no  respect  for 
the  old  adage  that  cleanliness  is  next  to  godliness,  for 
it  went  right  along  distributing  whether  the  type  was 
clean  or  dirty,  wet  or  dry.  When  any  channel  was 
full,  it  just  stopped  distributing  into  that  channel.  I 
nearly  forgot  —  that  nothing  desired  might  be  left  un- 
done, the  machine  measured  the  type  set  and  a  glance 
at  the  dial  at  any  time  would  tell  the  amount  set. 
Why  wasn't  it  a  success  ?  Because  to  keep  it  run- 
ning required  an  amount  of  mechanical  brains  and 
skill  seldom  found  in  human  beings. 
.  In  1880,  Joseph  Thorne  brought  out  the  Thome 
machine,  now  known  as  the  Simplex.  I  have  men- 
tioned this  machine  before.  It  is  one  of  the  machines 
now  upon  the  American  market.  It  sets  and  in  the 
same  machine  distributes  specially  nicked  foundry 
type.  Justification  is  accomplished  by  hand. 

[50 


MACHINE  COMPOSITION— THE  LINOTYPE 

Subsequent  to  1880  a  number  of  machines  were 
patented.  Among  them  are  the  Wicks  composing 
machine,  the  Macmillan,  the  Dow,  the  Cox,  the  Con- 
verse, the  Rogers  Typograph,  and  many  others.  As 
they  have  not  come  into  general  use,  nor  have  they 
marked  an  epoch  in  this  history,  I  will  pass  them 
with  this  mere  mention. 

ORIGIN  OF  THE  LINOTYPE 

Leaving  the  historical  part,  we  come  to  the  Lino- 
type and  the  Monotype.  As  the  features  and  virtues 
of  this  latter  machine  will  be  ably  presented  to  you 
presently,  I  will  attempt  to  tell  you  of  the  Linotype  : 
what  it  is,  what  it  does,  and  how  it  does  it. 

First,  it  isn't  the  Lin-o-type,  but  the  Line-o-type. 
Second,  it  isn't  a  typesetting  machine,  but  rather  a 
composing  machine  furnishing  a  complete  substitute 
for  single  types ;  in  doing  this  it  makes  each  line,  of 
the  desired  length,  in  one  piece  called  a  slug. 

A  number  of  stenographers,  mostly  court  stenog- 
raphers, had  obtained  a  crude  model  of  a  machine, 
which,  if  it  could  be  perfected  would  save  the  opera- 
tion of  reducing  their  notes  to  writing  and  then  hav- 
ing them  printed.  The  idea  was  to  produce  a  printing 
surface  at  the  first  operation.  A  Mr.  Mergenthaler, 
a  watchmaker  by  trade,  was  recommended  to  them, 
and  he  was  employed  to  carry  on  experiments.  After 
trying  about  every  possible  way,  and  about  every 
known  material,  to  get  a  direct  transfer  process,  he 
gave  it  up.  You  can  readily  see  how  a  mind  centered 
on  one  thing  day  in  and  day  out  would  sooner  or  later 
develop  something ;  so  it  is  not  surprising  that  he 
conceived  the  notion  of  assembling  a  line  of  dies  or 
matrices  and  casting  molten  metal  against  them, 

[52] 


LECTURE  IV— M  A  C  H  I  N  E   COMPOSITION 

thus  forming  a  complete  line  of  type  in  one  piece  or 
slug.  In  the  original  machine  the  character  on  the 
dies  (I  shall  hereafter  refer  to  them  as  matrices)  were 
stamped  or  punched  in  the  edges  of  long  bars,  each 
bar  containing  the  entire  alphabet.  The  keyboard 
controlled  the  matrices  and  stopped  them  at  the  re- 
quired letter.  In  the  next  machine  built,  small  mat- 
rices with  but  one  character  on  the  edge  of  each  were 
tried  and  met  with  instant  success.  You  who  are  fa- 
miliar with  the  Linotype  of  to-day  would  scarcely 
recognize  that  machine.  The  channels  containing  the 
matrices  stood  bolt  upright  and  on  arriving  at  the 
assembling  level  the  matrices  were  violently  .blown 
into  the  assembler.  A  number  of  these  so-called 
"  blowers  "  were  built  and  used  in  newspaper  offices. 
Shortly  after  this  the  present  scheme  of  assembling 
the  matrices  was  adopted.  The  magazine  containing 
the  matrices  was  placed  in  an  inclined  position,  the 
matrices  falling  by  gravity  and  carried  forward  to 
the  assembling  point  on  a  carrier  belt. 

FUNDAMENTAL  MECHANISM 

The  Linotype  consists  of  a  number  of  brass  matrices 
having  the  characters  of  the  alphabet,  figures,  etc., 
stamped  on  their  edges;  these  are  held  in  a  mag- 
azine where  they  are  controlled  from  the  keyboard. 
The  operation  of  the  keyboard  assembles  the  line 
desired,  a  wedge  space-band  being  placed  between 
the  words.  When  the  line  is  completed  a  bell  rings, 
and  by  simply  depressing  a  lever  the  line  is  automat- 
ically presented  before  the  mould  behind  which  is  a 
pot  containing  molten  metal.  The  wedge  spaces  are 
automatically  forced  upward  as  far  as  they  will  go, 
thus  justifying  the  line;  as  the  line  is  justified  a 

[53] 


MACHINE  COMPOSITION— THE  LINOTYPE 

plunger  descends  into  the  metal  pot,  forcing  a  quantity 
of  metal  to  flow  forward  into  the  mould  and  against 
the  line  of  matrices  which  has  been  presented  to  the 
mould.  Thus  a  slug  is  formed  in  the  mould ;  on  the 
top  of  this  slug  are  the  characters  which  were  con- 
tained in  the  line  of  matrices. 

The  metal  pot  recedes,  as  does  the  mould ;  as  the 
mould  recedes,  the  disc  containing  it  starts  to  revolve 
and,  as  it  does  so,  it  passes  a  knife  set  at  the  back  of 
the  disc  which  cuts  off  or  trims  any  burr  or  extra 
metal  which  may  be  on  the  foot  of  the  slug ;  thus 
making  certain  that  every  slug  will  be  type  high. 
Having  partly  completed  its  revolution,  the  disc  stops, 
the  mould  containing  the  slug  then  being  in  a  vertical 
position;  an  ejector  blade  then  comes  forward  and 
pushes  the  slug  out  of  the  mould  between  two  trim- 
ming knives  into  the  receiving  galley.  As  the  slug  is 
pushed  between  these  knives  it  is  accurately  trimmed 
on  its  sides,  assuring  a  slug  of  the  exact  body  de- 
sired. While  this  operation  is  taking  place,  an  eleva- 
tor descends  from  the  top  of  the  machine  and  raises 
the  matrices  to  the  distributing  mechanism.  Here  the 
matrices  are  carried  along  by  revolving  screws  and 
each  distributed  into  its  proper  channel  to  be  used 
again  in  its  turn.  As  the  matrices  are  lifted,  the  wedge 
spaces  are  left  behind  and  pushed  back  to  their  place 
to  be  used  again.  By  the  fortunate  arrangement  of 
the  machine,  three  lines  can  be  kept  moving  at  once 
—  one  being  assembled,  one  at  the  casting  point,  and 
the  third  being  distributed.  The  magazine  will  hold 
twenty  of  each  letter,  enough  for  all  ordinary  pur- 
poses, to  keep  the  three  lines  going. 

Thus  you  see  that  the  sole-  work  of  the  operator 
is  to  manipulate  the  keyboard,  and  when  a  line  is 

[54] 


LECTURE  IV— M  A C  H  I  N  E   COMPOSITION 

completed  he  simply  depresses  a  lever  and  immedi- 
ately starts  to  set  another  line,  every  other  part  of  the 
entire  operation  being  automatic. 

FLEXIBILITY    OF    THE    LINOTYPE 

In  the  early  machines  the  mould  which  forms  the 
slug  was  flexible  only  as  to  the  length  of  line.  If  a 
change  of  body  was  desired,  a  mould  to  cast  that 
body  would  have  to  be  placed  in  the  disc;  this  naturally 
consumed  time,  something  that  cannot  be  wasted  in 
the  print-shop  of  to-day.  After  a  series  of  experiments 
the  present  mould  was  placed  upon  the  market.  This 
mould  is  adjustable  both  as  to  measure  and  body.  To 
change  the  measure,  it  is  only  necessary  to  change 
the  filling  piece  or  liner  in  the  left  end  of  the  mould  ; 
where  a  larger  slug  is  required,  a  shorter  liner  is  placed 
in  the  mould  and  a  larger  liner  for  a  shorter  slug. 
To  change  both  body  and  measure,  the  liner  on  each 
end  is  changed ;  thus  to  change  from  one  body  and 
measure  to  another  is  a  mere  matter  of  seconds. 

Also  in  the  early  machines  each  matrix  had  but 
one  character  stamped  in  its  edge,  so,  if  an  italic 
word  was  required,  it  had  to  be  set  into  the  line  by 
hand.  The  fact  that  only  roman  faces  could  be  con- 
veniently set  on  the  machine  did  one  good  thing,  if  it 
never  did  another  —  it  rid  our  newspapers  of  a  large 
amount  of  italic  emphasis,  a  mighty  weak  emphasis 
at  the  best.  This  was  all  well  enough  for  the  news- 
papers, but  it  did  not  meet  conditions  in  the  book 
office.  This  led  to  the  inventing  of  the  two-letter 
attachment.  Two  letters  are  punched  in  each  matrix, 
one  above  the  other,  and  by  a  simple  arrangement 
of  rails  in  the  assembler,  which  are  controlled  by  a 
finger  key,  the  matrices  are  assembled  at  the  desired 

[55] 


MACHINE  COMPOSITION— THE  LINOTYPE 

level.  Thus,  if  an  italic  word  is  to  be  put  into  a  line  the 
words  in  roman  are  assembled  in  the  usual  way ; 
when  the  operator  comes  to  the  italic  word  he  pulls 
the  finger  key  and,  until  he  presses  it  back  again,  all 
matrices  will  be  assembled  at  a  higher  level.  Having 
set  the  italic  word,  he  presses  the  key  back  and  fin- 
ishes the  line ;  it  goes  forward  to  the  mould  with  all 
but  the  italic  word  in  the  usual  position ;  this  one 
word  is  higher ;  in  other  words,  it  presents  the  lower 
or  italic  characters  on  the  matrices  to  the  mould. 
Fonts  are  now  made  so  that,  in  place  of  the  italic, 
black  faces  can  be  set  in  conjunction  with  roman  in 
the  same  manner  as  I  have  just  described. 

From  the  first  it  has  been  possible  to  change  from 
one  size  of  type  to  another.  This  is  accomplished  by 
removing  the  magazine  which  holds  the  matrices  and 
putting  in  its  place  another  magazine  containing 
matrices  of  a  different  size.  The  early  machines 
would  set  from  five  to  eleven  point.  The  present 
machines  will  set  from  five  to  fourteen  point.  There 
have  been  a  number  of  changes  in  late  years  in  the 
method  of  changing  the  magazines.  In  the  early 
machines  quite  a  little  mechanism  had  to  be  removed 
with  the  magazine.  Later  this  was  greatly  simpli- 
fied, although  the  magazine  had  still  to  be  removed 
from  the  rear  of  the  machines  and,  on  account  of  its 
weight  and  inaccessibility,  required  the  services  of 
two  men.  In  our  present  machines  all  mechanism 
connected  with  the  magazine  remains  in  the  machine  ; 
it  has  been  materially  lightened  and  is  removed  by 
lifting  it  from  the  front  over  the  keyboard.  One 
person  can  now  readily  make  the  change  in  less 
than  a  minute. 


[56] 


LECTURE  IV— M  A C  H  I  N  E   COMPOSITION 

_ _ 

, 

DOUBLE-MAGAZINE    MACHINES 

In  this  long  course  of  development  and  our  experi- 
ence with  many  offices,  it  became  evident  that  to 
cover  certain  classes  of  work  a  machine  carrying  more 
than  two  faces  would  be  required.  To  cover  this 
field  the  double-magazine  Linotype  was  placed  upon 
the  market.  While  this  machine  is  upon  the  same 
lines  as  the  usual  Linotype,  it  contains  two  maga- 
zines, one  overlying  the  other,  each  of  which  may 
contain  a  font  of  two-letter  matrices.  From  five  to 
fourteen  point  can  be  carried  in  either  magazine,  so 
that  you  could  have  matrices  of  the  same  size  in  both 
magazines,  or  five-point  in  one  and  fourteen -point  in 
the  other. 

If  the  operator  is  setting  from  the  upper  magazine 
and  requires  matrices  from  the  lower,  he  simply 
lowers  a  lever ;  to  get  matrices  from  the  upper  again, 
it  is  only  necessary  to  raise  the  lever.  The  casting 
mechanism  is  identical  with  that  of  the  usual  Lino- 
type. Two  moulds  are  placed  in  the  disc,  so  in  case 
the  matrices  are  of  a  different  size,  a  quick  change 
of  body  can  be  made.  This  is  done  by  the  operator 
without  leaving  his  seat,  it  being  only  necessary  for 
him  to  pull  a  cluch  and  turn  the  disc  partly  around. 
In  distributing,  the  matrices  are  lifted  to  the  distribu- 
tors in  the  usual  manner,  the  matrices  belonging  in 
the  lower  magazine  dropping  through  a  shute  to  the 
lower  bars,  there  being  two  separate  distributors  on 
this  machine.  The  development  of  the  double-maga- 
zine machine  has  been  rapid.  In  the  first  machines 
the  lower  magazine  was  stationary  and  could  not  be 
removed.  To  change  the  face  it  was  necessary  to  run 
all  of  the  matrices  out  by  means  of  the  key-board 

[57] 


MACHINE  COMPOSITION— THE  LINOTYPE 

and  then  put  another  font  in,  a  few  at  a  time, 
through  the  distributors.  This  wasn't  the  only  feature 
to  be  overcome :  the  speed  obtained  from  the  lower 
magazine  was  much  less  than  that  from  the  upper ; 
it  had  been  our  idea  that  the  lower  magazine  would 
be  used  only  as  an  auxiliary  to  the  upper.  You  have 
before  you  a  cut  of  the  latest  double-magazine  Lino- 
type. Not  only  can  both  magazines  be  changed,  but 
each  can  be  changed  in  less  than  a  minute  ;  indeed, 
the  lower  magazine  can  be  changed  while  the  opera- 
tor continues  to  set  from  the  upper  magazine.  The 
same  speed  can  now  be  obtained  from  both  magazines. 

ADAPTED    FOR    GOOD    WORK 

In  late  years  the  machines  have  been  developed 
along  lines  which  would  fit  them  for  the  finer  grades 
of  printing  and  to-day,  if  the  machine  is  properly  and 
regularly  cleaned  and  intelligently  cared  for,  it  will 
give  a  product  that  is  fully  equal  to  new  foundry  type. 
There  is  no  class  of  composition  under  fourteen-point 
that  the  machine  will  not  do,  and  do  it  at  a  large  sav- 
ing in  cost  over  hand  work. 

Until  recently  the  machine  would  not  set  a  wider 
measure  than  thirty  ems  pica;  we  can  now  furnish 
machines  that  will  set  as  wide  a  measure  as  thirty-six 
and  one-half  ems  pica.  There  are  twelve  of  this  type 
of  machine  in  the  Government  Printing  Office  at 
Washington  to-day. 

When  I  say  the  Linotype  will  do  all  classes  of 
composition,  I  mean  it.  But  a  short  time  ago  Mr. 
John  R.  Rogers,  the  inventor  of  the  Typograph,  in- 
vented a  tabular  attachment  which  can  readily  be 
applied  to  all  machines.  The  mold  used  is  not  as 
high  as  the  usual  mold  and  the  character,  instead  of 

[58] 


LECTURE  IV— MACHINE  COMPOSITION 

being  stamped  in  the  edge  of  the  matrix,  is  stamped 
in  a  recess  cut  in  the  matrix ;  this  recess  is  about  a 
quarter  of  an  inch  deep ;  thus  the  matrix  is  made  a 
part  of  the  mold,  that  is,  the  metal  goes  into  the  re- 
cess in  the  matrix ;  wherever  a  rule  is  to  appear  a 
thin  blank  matrix  without  any  recess  in  it  is  placed 
in  the  line,  so  when  the  line  is  cast  this  thin  plate 
leaves  a  slot  in  the  slug ;  when  the  column  is  com- 
pleted, these  slots  form  a  continuous  slot  into  which 
shallow  rule  can  readily  be  inserted.  Table  work 
should  be  proved  and  corrected  before  the  rule  is  in- 
serted. 

As  to  Linotype  corrections  —  there  never  has  been 
any  doubt  that  corrections  could  be  made  more  speed- 
ily on  the  machine  than  by  hand,  as  the  machine  is 
capable  of  making  six  new  slugs  a  minute,  but,  with 
the  usual  perversity  of  things,  when  you  wanted  to 
make  a  few  eight-point  corrections,  ten-point  was  in 
the  machine  and  it  took  two  men  from  five  to  ten 
minutes,  depending  upon  their  skill,  to  make  the 
change ;  with  but  a  few  corrections  to  make,  the  ma- 
chine lost  out ;  but  this  was  not  so  where  any  amount 
of  matter  was  to  be  corrected.  With  the  new  Lino- 
type the  change  from  eight  to  ten  points  can  be  made 
in  a  minute.  Let  us  suppose  we  have  three  galleys  of 
matter  to  be  corrected  and  there  are  twenty  lines  in 
each  to  be  corrected ;  instead  of  six,  we  will  say  that 
the  operator  casts  five  corrected  slugs  a  minute  ;  this 
would  take  him  twelve  minutes  to  make  the  sixty  cor- 
rections ;  if  a  change  had  to  be  made  to  get  the  right 
size  or  font,  it  would  consume  a  minute  each  way  — 
we'll  say  fifteen  minutes ;  this  is  the  amount  of  time 
the  machine  has  ceased  production  and  the  corrected 
lines  are  ready  and  justified.  How  long  do  you  fig- 

[59] 


MACHINE  COMPOSITION— THE  LINOTYPE 

ure  it  would  take  by  hand  to  make  sixty  corrections 
and  properly  justify  the  lines  ? 

A  moment  or  two  ago  I  said  that  the  finest  grades 
of  printing  could  be  produced  from  Linotype  slugs, 
and  yet  I  see  much  printing  from  slugs  that  we  can- 
not be  proud  of.  It  is  not  caused  by  any  inherent 
defect  in  the  machine  but  solely  by  the  ignorance, 
carelessness  or  indolence  (I  could  use  a  worse  ex- 
pression) of  the  attendant.  We  frequently  see  burs 
or  hair  lines  between  the  letters ;  this  is  caused  by 
the  breaking  down  of  the  thin  side  walls  on  each  side 
of  the  letter,  and  probably  without  exception  the  walls 
are  broken  down  by  metal  which  has  been  allowed 
to  accumulate  on  the  wedge  spaces.  These  spaces 
should  be  cleaned  every  day  by  simply  rubbing  them 
on  a  board  covered  with  canvas. 

Again,  we  see  slugs  that  are  literally  full  of  holes ; 
the  metal  itself  has  been  bad,  too  hot,  or  dross  and 
dirt  has  been  allowed  to  collect  behind  the  mouth- 
piece through  which  the  metal  is  forced  into  the  mold. 

A  bad  or  sandy  face  is  usually  caused  by  the  metal 
being  poor,  or  it  has  been  suddenly  chilled.  It  is  an 
every-day  occurrence  to  see  two  or  three  cold  ingots 
thrust  into  the  pot  at  once,  when  one  only  should  be 
put  in,  and  operating  is  immediately  resumed. 

If  slugs  are  off  their  feet,  it  is  because  the  side 
trimming  knives  through  which  the  slug  is  pushed 
into  the  galley  are  not  properly  set.  If  every  slug, 
whether  it  is  cast  to-day  or  a  year  from  to-day,  is  not 
exactly  type  high,  it  is  because  the  trimming  knife 
back  of  the  mold  is  not  properly  set. 

Taking  into  account  the  degree  of  accuracy  re- 
quired to  produce  a  perfect  printing  surface,  the 
Linotype  in  its  present  improved  state  is  about  as 
fool-proof  as  a  sewing  machine. 

[60] 


LECTURE  IV— MACHINE  COMPOSITION 

IN  the  unavoidable  absence  of  Mr.  Hays,  who  had 
expected  the  pleasure  of  addressing  you  this  after- 
noon, this  pleasant  duty  has  devolved  upon  me, 
and  I  shall  attempt  in  the  brief  time  at  my  command 
to  outline  to  you  the  history  and  development  of  the 
Monotype,  its  mechanism,  flexibility,  and  product. 

Since  the  days  of  Faust  and  Gutenberg  it  has 
been  the  dream  of  the  printer  to  accomplish  mechan- 
ically that  which  for  centuries  had  been  done  by  the 
slow  arid  laborious  method  of  selecting  the  individ- 
ual types  from  the  cases  and  assembling  them  by 
hand  in  the  composing  stick.  The  efforts  in  the  direc- 
tion of  invention  have  been  slow  and  difficult;  and 
inventors  have  flooded  the  market  with  impracticable 
'machines,  though  many  of  them  imparted  principles 
of  value,  and  were  leading  in  the  direction  of  solving 
the  problem. 

The  types  were  first  cast  in  hand  moulds ;  this 
process  was  followed  by  the  automatic  machines  now 
used  by  the  foundries,  enabling  the  printer  to  get,  at 
a  reasonable  cost,  perfect  individual  types.  The  diffi- 
culties of  composition  were  still  to  be  overcome  and 
as  a  natural  sequence  machines  were  invented  which 
would  automatically  assemble  and  distribute  this 
foundry  product.  These  methods,  however,  never 
met  with  unqualified  success,  due  in  a  great  meas- 
ure to  the  fact  that  the  product,  which  was  perish- 
able, must  still  be  purchased  from  the  type  foundry. 
The  breaking  and  wearing  of  the  type  and  constant 
requirement  for  sorts  and  the  wearing  of  the  face 
still  loomed  up  before  the  printer  as  his  great  bug- 
bear and  profit-eater  in  the  form  of  type  foundry  bills. 

Then  came  the  slug  machine  which  to  a  degree 
solved  this  problem  in  the  smaller  sizes  of  body  type, 

[61] 


MACHINE  COMPOSITION— THE  MONOTYPE 

giving  the  necessary  increase  in  speed  and  eliminat- 
ing distribution  on  sizes  from  fourteen-point  down, 
and  giving  the  newspapers  the  opportunity  to  achieve 
the  remarkable  feats  of  present-day  journalism  with 
the  enormous  editions  and  facilities  for  getting  out 
telegraphic  news. 

The  natural  sequence  of  the  progress  of  invention 
finally  resulted  in  the  production  of  the  Monotype,  a 
machine  which  would  produce  individual  types  and 
assemble  them  in  perfectly  justified  lines  with  a  speed 
and  economy  infinitely  greater  than  hand  composi- 
tion and  still  maintain  the  quality  of  the  production, 
as  well  as  give  enormous  advantage  for  corrections 
and  manipulation  that  the  individual  type  must  ever 
maintain  over  every  other  method. 

First,  I  wish  to  explain  briefly  the  principles  of 
the  Monotype  system ;  that  is,  the  system  by  which 
the  work  is  produced,  and  the  manner  in  which  the 
casting  machine  or  type  making  is  separated  from 
the  key-board  or  composing  mechanism.  I  will  briefly 
give  you,  therefore,  a  description  of  the  key-board 
and  caster,  and  the  relation  of  one  to  the  other. 

THE    KEY-BOARD 

The  key-board,  which  is  in  appearance  and  opera- 
tion very  similar  to  the  typewriter,  is  entirely  sep- 
arate from  the  casting  machine.  Striking  a  key  on 
the  key-board,  however,  instead  of  producing  a  let- 
ter, as  is  the  case  in  the  typewriter,  punches  a  tiny 
hole  in  a  paper  ribbon,  which  is  automatically  fed 
over  a  series  of  punches  provided  for  this  purpose. 
This  perforated  ribbon,  which  in  appearance  is  not 
unlike  the  music  roll  of  a  pianola,  is  transferred, 
when  the  take  is  completed,  to  the  casting  machine. 

[62] 


LECTURE  IV— MACHINE  COMPOSITION 

Here  each  perforation  in  turn  is  automatically  pre- 
sented to  a  corresponding  air  tube  on  the  casting 
machine,  admitting  compressed  air  and  controlling 
in  turn  the  mechanism  of  the  caster  and  producing 
exactly  the  character  and  composition  previously 
determined  by  the  key-board  operator. 

At  each  of  the  140  revolutions  per  minute  of  the 
caster,  a  new  hole  in  the  ribbon  is  presented  to  its 
proper  air  tube,  and  a  perfect  and  standard  type  is 
automatically  produced,  the  whole  assembled  in  per- 
fectly justified  lines  and  placed  in  the  galley. 

Thus  the  key-board,  being  separate  from  the  caster, 
makes  it  possible  to  have  the  key-board  and  caster 
together,  as  is  necessary  in  small  one-machine  plants, 
where  a  machinist  operator  is  employed;  or  it  makes 
possible  the  division  of  labor,  recognized  as  so  vi- 
tally important  to  obtain  large  and  perfect  produc- 
tion in  modern  manufacturing.  Thus  the  key-board 
operators,  removed  from  the  fumes,  grease  and  mech- 
anism, can  give  their  undivided  attention  to  speed 
and  accuracy  of  composition;  and  the  caster  man  in 
turn  can  give  his  undivided  attention  to  the  casting 
for  the  production  of  perfect  and  accurate  type,  thus 
each  man  does  what  his  talent  and  training  best  fit 
him  for. 

In  addition  to  the  two  rows  of  red  keys  at  the  top, 
which  are  used  purely  in  connection  with  the  justi- 
fying system,  the  key-board  has  225  keys,  repre- 
senting as  many  characters.  These  are  arranged  in 
fifteen  rows,  each  row  containing  a  group  of  fifteen, 
characters  which  bears  a  fixed  relation  in  size  to  each 
of  the  other  fourteen  rows;  that  is,  for  instance,  on 
the  fifth,  sixth  and  seventh  vertical  rows  will  be  found 
the  figures  and  all  characters  requiring  a  nut  body, 

[63] 


MACHINE  COMPOSITION— THE  MONOTYPE 

while  in  the  fifteenth  row  will  be  found  the  charac- 
ters requiring  the  "  mutton  "  body  or  quad.  All  charac- 
ters are  thus  grouped  in  the  rows  which  will  give 
them  their  proper  body  sizes.  The  actual  point  size 
required  does  not  in  any  way  change  the  lay-out  of 
the  keys,  but  is  determined  by  the  mould  on  the 
casting  machine,  and  merely  requires  a  slight  change 
on  the  counting  or,  to  give  it  its  proper  name,  justify- 
ing mechanism  of  the  key-board. 

This  counting  mechanism  is  placed  just  above  the 
key-bank  and  consists  of  a  graduated  em  scale  and 
a  pointer,  which  registers  the  amount  set  in  each 
line,  and  the  small  cylinder,  called  the  justifying 
scale,  also  provided  with  a  pointer,  which  indicates 
to  the  operator  which  of  the  red  keys  in  the  upper 
row  to  touch  in  order  to  justify  his  line.  When  a 
key  is  depressed  the  pointer  on  the  em  scale  regis- 
ters the  space  taken  up  by  the  character  represented 
by  the  key  which  the  operator  has  touched.  We  can 
consider  the  keys  as  representing  the  cases,  and  the 
em  scale  as  representing  the  stick.  In  hand  work 
the  compositor  picks  his  type  from  the  case,  places 
it  in  the  stick  and  repeats  this  process  until  the  stick 
is  full.  The  Monotype  compositor,  instead  of  pick- 
ing out  the  character,  depresses  a  key,  and  the  em 
scale  registers  the  exact  amount  of  space  taken  up 
by  the  type  to  be  used,  the  pointer  moving  along  the 
scale  the  proper  distance  for  each  character  and 
space,  until  a  bell  rings  warning  him  that  his  line  is 
complete.  The  hand  compositor,  at  the  end  of  the 
line,  finds  his  line  does  not  quite  fill  out  the  stick, 
and  increases  the  size  of  the  spaces  between  the 
words  to  justify  the  line.  The  Monotype  operator,  at 
the  end  of  the  line,  merely  looks  at  the  pointer 

[64] 


LECTURE IV— MACHINE  COMPOSITION 

against  the  small  cylinder  and  touches  two  of  the 
red  keys  in  the  top  row  indicated  by  the  pointer. 
This  automatically  justifies  the  line  by  increasing 
the  sizes  of  the  spaces  between  the  words  to  exactly 
fill  out  the  line,  and  the  operator  accomplishes  this 
without  thought  or  effort  on  his  part.  It  must  be 
always  borne  in  mind  that  the  caster  will  eventually 
be  compelled  by  the  perforated  ribbon  to  carry  out 
automatically  the  previously  determined  effort  of  the 
key-board  operator,  all  figuring  on  the  justification 
having  been  done  by  the  Monotype  Company  at  the 
factory,  when  the  machines  were  built,  the  em  scale 
and  the  justifying  scale,  each  provided  with  a  pointer, 
being  the  automatic  guides  for  the  operator. 

I  will  not  go  into  details  of  the  justifying  mechan- 
ism, but  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  jus- 
tifying is  done  by  the  machine,  by  automatically  in- 
creasing the  sizes  of  the  spaces  between  the  words 
to  meet  the  need  of  each  line;  and  again,  the  size  of 
each  character  being  known  makes  it  possible  to 
justify  by  what  might  be  called  the  self -spacing  sys- 
tem, this  latter  method  being  largely  employed  in 
tabular  work  where  there  are  a  number  of  columns 
of  figures  and  a  given  number  of  figures  in  each  col- 
umn. For  instance,  should  a  column  be  ten  picas 
measure,  and  you  are  running  twelve-point,  by  throw- 
ing in  twenty  figures  on  a  nut -quad  body  (in  this 
case  touching  a  nut-body  key  twenty  times)  you 
know  without  further  calculation  that  you  have  a  ten- 
pica  measure ;  and  as  I  explained  before  that  each 
row  maintains  a  distinct  relation  in  width  to  all  the 
others,  it  is  plain  that  this  known  system  is  a  very 
simple  and  easy  method  of  justification  in  tabular 
work. 

[65] 


MACHINE  COMPOSITION— THE  MONOTYPE 

The  225  keys  admit  of  placing  six  alphabets  at 
the  command  of  the  operator, —  roman  caps  and 
lower  case,  italic  caps  and  lower  case,  and  bold 
face  caps  and  lower  case,  or  a  great  number  of 
special  characters  can  be  substituted  for  a  part  of 
the  regular  lay-out ;  this  is  often  necessary  in  math- 
ematical, scientific,  and  encyclopaedia  composition, 
where  signs  and  accents  play  such  an  important 
part,  it  being  necessary  merely  to  put  these  charac- 
ters in  the  row  of  keys  which  will  give  them  their 
proper  body  size.  In  all  cases  the  lay-out  of  the 
copper  matrices  is  made  to  conform  with  the  arrange- 
ment of  keys  on  the  board.  Add  to  this  the  fact 
that  the  Monotype  will  compose  in  any  measure  up 
to  sixty  picas  and  you  can  have  an  idea  of  the  flexi- 
bility of  its  product. 

THE  CASTING  MACHINE 

For  brevity  in  describing  the  casting  machine  we 
will  divide  it  into  its  most  important  parts  :  the  mat- 
rix from  which  the  face  is  cast,  the  mould  in  which 
the  body  of  the  type  is  cast,  and  the  pump  which 
supplies  the  metal  after  the  mould  and  matrix  have 
been  automatically  brought  in  conjunction  and  injects 
the  metal  in  a  molten  state  with  sufficient  force  to 
perfectly  fill  the  mould.  All  these  parts  are.  if  required, 
under  the  complete  control  of  the  paper  ribbon  which 
was  perforated  by  the  operator  at  the  key-board  and 
which  acts  as  the  brains  for  the  casting  machine. 

The  matrix  is  a  piece  of  hard  copper  one  fifth  of  an 
inch  square,  in  the  lower  end  of  which  the  character  is 
driven.  Two  hundred  and  twenty-five  of  these  (one 
for  each  of  the  keys  previously  described  on  the  key- 
board) are  similarly  arranged  in  fifteen  rows  of  fifteen 
[66] 


LECTURE  I V— M  A  C  H  I  N  E   COMPOSITION 

matrices  each,  and  are  held  together  in  a  steel  frame 
by  wires  which  pass  through  them. 

By  means  of  the  mechanism  on  the  casting  machine 
the  required  matrices  are  moved  one  after  the  other 
over  the  opening  in  the  mould,  in  the  order  previously 
determined  by  the  key-board  operator,  and  each  is 
held  there  during  the  process  of  casting.  A  new  matrix 
moves  to  the  position  over  the  opening  in  the  mould 
at  each  of  the  140  revolutions  made  by  the  casting 
machine  in  one  minute,  and  the  required  character 
is  produced. 

The  mould  is  a  beautifully-made  piece  of  machine 
work,  composed  of  steel.  It  is  rectangular  in  shape, 
and  made  to  an  accuracy  of  one  ten-thousandth  of  an 
inch,  and  is  built  in  such  a  way  that  the  type  is  cast 
complete  in  the  mould,  no  finishing  or  trimming  being 
necessary  afterwards.  The  feet  and  body  of  the  type 
produced  by  the  mould  itself,  insures  the  most  perfect 
accuracy,  as  it  is  impossible  to  trim  any  piece  of  metal 
with  the  assistance  of  knives  as  accurately  as  it  can 
be  cast  in  a  solid  steel  jacket  of  a  water-cooled  mould. 
The  moment  that  the  hot  metal  is  injected  into  the 
mould  it  is  cooled  by  an  arrangement  of  water  circula- 
tion, is  at  once  ejected  into  the  mechanical  stick,  and 
is  automatically  assembled  in  lines  and  placed  on  the 
galley  ready  for  the  proof  press.  The  pump,  at  each 
revolution  of  the  machine,  injects  into  the  bottom  of 
the  mould  a  sufficient  amount  of  metal  at  high  press- 
ure to  insure  a  perfect  cast. 

It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  in  composition, 
which  the  machine  will  produce  in  sizes  from  five  to 
fourteen  point,  caster  and  key-board  are  both  needed, 
but  the  casting  machine,  in  the  mere  production  of 
type  for  the  cases,  is  perfectly  independent  and  can 

[67] 


MACHINE  COMPOSITION— THE  MONOTYPE 

produce  sorts  from  five  to  thirty-six  point  at  a  con- 
servative estimate  of  fifteen  pounds  an  hour  without 
requiring  a  keyboard.  This  is  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able points  of  the  Monotype,  and  its  economy  in  sav- 
ing of  time  and  foundry  bills  as  purely  a  sorts  caster 
cannot  be  over-estimated.  It  will  supply  the  office  at 
request  with  any  sorts  or  space  material  required 
without  recourse  to  the  type  foundry  or  without  the 
necessity  of  waiting,  and  this  should  strongly  appeal 
to  you  men  who  are  looking  forward  to  some  day  man- 
aging your  own  office  and  getting  rid  of  idle  time.  It 
eliminates  you  entirely  from  the  foundry  and  makes 
the  office  possessing  the  Monotype  a  power  in  itself, 
and  in  a  position  to  accept  any  work  regardless  of  the 
amount  of  body  and  display  type  required  for  the  job. 
Were,  therefore,  the  old  printers  to  have  specified 
the  requirements  for  a  mechanism  which  would  make 
conditions  ideal  in  printing,  they  would  have  required 
a  machine  embodying  the  following  principles  : 

1 .  That  its  mode  of  operation  should  be  so  simple 
that  the  ordinary  compositor  should  be  able  to  master 
it  easily,  and  turn  his  past  experience  and  knowledge 
of  typesetting  to  the  most  profitable  account. 

2.  That  intricate  and  tabular  work  should  present 
to  this  machine  no  more  difficulty  than  straight  com- 
position. 

3.  That  its  quality  should  equal  the  best  foundry 
product  and  still  have  the  advantage  of  a  new  print- 
ing surface  for  each  job. 

4.  That  the  product  should  be  as  easily  and  freely 
handled  as  hand  composition. 

5.  That  the  cost  of  the  work,  quality  for  quality, 
should  be  lower  than  that  of  matter  handled  by  any 
other  method. 

[68] 


LECTURE  IV— M  A C  H  I  N  E   COMPOSITION 

6.  And  that  display  type  for  the  cases  should  be 
made  of  the  finest  quality,  and  the  lowest  cost. 

These  are  the  essentials  of  the  ideal  machine  and 
there  is  not  one  of  these  which  the  Monotype  does 
not  supply  in  every  particular. 

The  majority  of  time  tables  and  tariffs  and  railroad 
work  done  in  this  country  are  handled  on  the  Mono- 
type. In  magazine  composition  where  over-runs,  due 
to  the  insertion  of  cuts,  are  frequent,  the  speed  of 
Monotype  straight  composition  and  the  ease  with 
which  the  individual  type  is  manipulated,  has  proved 
this  method  to  be  more  economical  than  any  other. 
And  the  number  of  editions-de-luxe  printed  from 
Monotype  type  attests  to  the  high  quality  of  the  com- 
position. 

In  the  performance  of  its  work  the  casting  machine 
gives  at  first  sight  an  idea  of  complication,  as  its 
moving  parts  occupy  so  little  room  and  are  grouped 
so  that  the  observer  sees  the  whole  mechanism  at 
once.  This  is  unfortunate,  as  the  saving  of  floor 
space  and  placing  of  moving  parts  in  plain  view  are 
two  of  the  strongest  points  of  the  machine. 

The  best  proof  that  we  have  of  the  simplicity  of 
the  machine  is  the  success  that  we  have  met  in  train- 
ing operators  at  our  school  in  Philadelphia.  We  have 
there  a  large  battery  of  machines  and  a  competent 
corps  of  instructors  whose  duty  it  is  to  teach  men  to 
take  charge  of  the  new  plants  which  are  being  installed 
all  over  the  country.  We  have  found  most  of  our  best 
operators  and  machinists  in  the  ranks  of  the  printers, 
and  eight  to  twelve  weeks  has  enabled  men,  who  have 
never  seen  the  machine  before,  to  take  charge  of  a 
plant.  We  are  anxious  especially  that  printers  avail 
themselves  of  this  course  and  extend  a  hearty  invita- 

[69] 


MACHINE   COMPOSITION— THEMONOTYPE 

tion  to  any  of  the  men  here  to  put  in  their  applica- 
tion. The  education  is  brief  but  most  thorough,  and 
is  absolutely  free  to  any  young  men  coming  well  rec- 
ommended. The  fact  of  his  being  a  printer  especially 
recommends  him. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  a  few  years  ago  when 
the  lack  of  general  knowledge  of  the  Monotype  made 
it  hard  to  get  printers  to  take  it  up,  we  were  com- 
pelled often  to  take  men  who  had  nothing  to  recom- 
mend them  but  character  and  intelligence,  and  whose 
previous  training  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  print- 
ing business  or  the  machinist  trade.  The  fact  that 
many  of  these  men  are  today  high-paid  Monotype 
machinists  speaks  very  strongly  for  the  simplicity  of 
the  Monotype  and  should  encourage  you  young  men, 
whose  education  as  printers  has  particularly  fitted 
you  for  this  work,  to  make  application  for  instruction, 
and  I  trust  it  may  not  be  long  before  some  of  you 
will  be  knocking  at  the  door  of  our  school  in  Phila- 
delphia, where  you  are  already  assured  of  a  welcome 
hand. 


[70] 


V 

FROM  APPRENTICE  TO 
EM  PLOVER 


FROM  APPRENTICE  TO  EMPLOYER 
By  THOMAS  TODD,  Proprietor  of  The  Beacon 
Press,  Boston  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  ::  LECTURE  No.  V 

MY  dear  boys,  I  shall  begin  my  feeble  remarks 
with  the  old  chestnut  of  the  school  teacher  in 
Germany,  who  invariably,  when  the  scholars 
came  in  the  morning,  would  bow  low  to  them ;  upon 
being  inquired  of  as  to  his  reason  for  doing  so,  he  re- 
plied, "  They  may  be  burgomasters  some  day."  And 
so,  in  like  manner,  1  bow  low  before  you  who  are  ap- 
prentices; because  by  and  by  you  may  be  among  the 
master  printers.  You  are  not  called  upon  to  endure 
the  tribulations  that  we  old  apprentices  had  to  under- 
go. None  of  you,  as  yet,  have  had  to  get  up  two  or 
three  hours  before  daylight,  and  shiveringly  go  down 
to  the  office,  build  a  fire,  thaw  out  the  rollers  that  are 
filled  with  frost,  holding  them  up  to  the  fire  to  get  the 
frost  out,  yet  needing  to  be  very  careful  about  ap- 
proaching too  near  the  fire,  lest  your  rollers  should 
melt.  I  doubt  if  one  of  you  have  ever  had  that  experi- 
ence. I  know  that  none  of  you  have  ever  had  the  ex- 
perience of  washing  rollers  in  potash  lye,  when  your 
hands  were  so  chapped  with  the  cold  that  the  lye 
would  get  into  the  cracks  in  your  hands,  and  you  would 
suffer  torture.  I  question  if  any  of  you  ever  saw  forms 
put  into  a  rocking  trough,  where  the  trough  rocked  on 
a  pivot  in  the  centre,  where  the  kettle  of  lye  was 
poured  upon  the  form,  and  the  trough  rocked  to  and 
fro  until  the  lye  was  thoroughly  incorporated  into  the 
form  ;  then  the  face  of  the  type  was  scrubbed  with  a 
brush,  then  all  the  lye  drawn  off.  and  clear  water 
substituted ;  the  process  of  rocking  the  cradle  again 
gone  through  with  until  the  lye  was  supposed  to  be 
thoroughly  washed  out,  and  the  form  lifted  from  the 

[73] 


APPRENTICE    TO    EM  P  LOY  ER  — TODD 

trough,  put  on  the  stone,  and  unlocked  to  distribute. 
When  the  form  was  unlocked,  you  could  take  a  hand- 
ful of  type  and  throw  it  across  the  office  before  it  would 
drop  apart.  O,  the  fingers  of  the  apprentices !  Scarred, 
and  marred,  and  mutilated  —  worse  even  than  the 
base  ball  players  of  today. 

APPRENTICES    OF    THE    PAST 

We  had  an  apprentice,  or  rather,  I  should  say  my 
father  did,  by  the  name  of  Joyce,  who  afterwards  be- 
came a  lieutenant  in  the  United  States  Navy.  No 
printing  office  could  hold  him  very  long.  He  was  a 
dare-devil  little  fellow,  and  once  for  three  cents  he 
took  off  his  boots  and  stockings  and,  taking  a  pail, 
walked  quite  a  little  way  down  to  the  town  pump 
through  the  snow,  drew  a  pail  of  water  and  brought 
it  back  to  the  office.  He  thought  he  had  earned  his 
three  cents,  and  his  fellow  apprentices  thought  so, 
too.  Again,  upon  being  stumped,  for  three  cents,  he 
put  his  flaxen-haired  head  into  an  ink  keg.  His  mis- 
tress (for  all  apprentices  boarded  with  the  master 
and  mistress)  simply  went  wild  over  the  possibilities 
of  her  pillow  cases,  until  his  flaxen  hair  became  once 
more  restored  to  its  natural  color. 

It  was  the  province  of  my  father,  as  the  oldest 
apprentice,  to  thrash  all  the  younger  apprentices  for 
misdemeanors.  In  thrashing  this  Joyce,  the  boy  never 
whimpered,  and  all  the  reply  he  made  to  father's 
work  was  simply,  "  You  damn  nigger,  you !  " 

The  apprentices  of  those  times  were  not  so  ten- 
derly nurtured  as  the  apprentices  of  the  present  time. 
One  of  our  delectable  enjoyments,  as  apprentices, 
was  to  roll  the  forms  of  the  newspapers  that  we  used 
to  print,  and  it  was  no  slight  matter.  The  rollers 

L74] 


LECTURE  V— APPRENTICE   TO    EMPLOYER 

must  be  kept  in  first-rate  order,  ink  must  be  put  on 
by  the  brayer,  and  the  handle  of  the  cylinder  turned 
to  distribute  the  ink  very  rapidly,  because  when  the 
form  was  presented  before  the  rollers,  the  ink  must 
be  all  distributed,  and  there  must  not  be  a  second  of 
time  to  hinder  the  working  of  the  press.  The  press- 
man was  obliged  by  the  canons  of  the  trade  to  print 
a  white  token  (240  sheets)  in  an  hour.  He  had  to  fly 
his  frisket,  take  off  his  sheet,  replace  another,  throw 
the  frisket  down,  roll  the  tympan  under  the  press, 
pull  the  lever,  throw  it  back,  roll  his  form  back,  lift 
his  tympan,  and  fly  his  frisket  for  each  impression. 
I  have  heard  it  said  that  with  the  old  Ramage  presses, 
where  two  impressions  were  taken  of  each  form,  the 
pressman  attained  the  same  speed  of  240  impres- 
sions an  hour.  How  he  did  it  is  more  than  I  can 
understand.  That  was  before  my  time. 

NECESSITY    OF    BEING    CIVIL 

An  apprentice  in  those  times  (I  do  not  know  how 
it  is  now)  was  obliged  to  keep  a  civil  tongue  in  his 
head,  else  punishment,  swift  and  dire,  would  fall 
upon  him.  An  apprentice  was  once  "  sassy  "  to  the 
pressman,  who  thereupon  rolled  his  form  under  the 
platen,  swung  himself  around  behind  the  press,  took 
the  apprentice  by  the  collar  with  his  right  hand,  and 
with  his  left  hand  took  the  brayer  from  the  ink  table, 
and  rolled  the  apprentice's  face  with  ink.  That 
occurred  under  my  own  knowledge,  although  I  was 
not  the  victim,  for  I  want  it  distinctly  understood  at 
that  time  I  was  not  saucy.  How  far  I  may  have  at- 
tained proficiency  in  the  art  now,  under  the  tuition 
of  other  master  printers,  it  is  not  for  me  to  say. 

[75] 


APPRENTICE    TO    EM  PLOY  ER  — TODD 


APPRENTICES     GRAFT 

After  the  forms  were  printed  on  the  press  and  the 
papers  folded,  then  the  apprentice  had  a  route  of  pa- 
pers to  carry.  If  he  served  the  patrons  of  the  paper 
well,  at  New  Year's  time  the  editor  would  work  off  a  lot 
of  doggerel  and  call  it  poetry,  the  apprentice  would 
set  it  up  at  odd  times,  and  print  it,  and  then  on  New 
Year's  Day  he  would  present  to  each  patron  a  copy 
of  the  screed  and  receive  in  return  either  a  fourpence- 
ha?-penny  or  a  ninepence,  and  in  some  extreme  cases, 
where  the  patron  was  very  rich,  a  quarter  of  a  dollar. 
That  was  about  the  only  event  in  the  life  of  the  appren 
tice  in  those  days  that  was  joyously  rememberable. 

NEW    IMPROVEMENTS    IN    PRESSES 

Another  little  enjoyment  of  the  apprentice,  so  differ- 
ent from  what  we  have  now,  was  to  print  wedding 
cards  and  other  delicate  stationery  on  a  24  x  36  hand 
press.  By  putting  on  bearers  all  over  the  bed  of  the 
press,  he  could  arrange  his  impression  very  well. 
But  even  under  these  circumstances  he  could  only 
draw  the  lever  of  the  press  around  half  way,  or  at 
some  imaginable  notch  on  the  cross  bar.  Woe  betide 
him  if  he  forgot  for  a  single  impression  and  pulled 
the  bar  clear  around.  Then  the  foreman  indulged 
in  profanity,  forcible  and  prolonged  ;  for  that  font  of 
type  was  entirely  ruined.  I  have  printed  business 
cards  on  a  double-medium  hand  press  for  $2.50  per 
thousand.  It  would  take  a  day  to  do  it,  but  then  I 
was  an  apprentice  and  I  was  of  no  account.  When 
a  Yankee  card  press  was  invented,  it  was  a  godsend 
to  the  craft.  It  is  an  obsolete  thing  now.  I  doubt 
if  one  of  you  have  ever  seen  one,  unless  perhaps  one 


LECTURE  V— APPRENTICE   TO    EMPLOYER 

may  be  in  some  museum ;  but  it  was  a  delicate  little 
machine  with  rollers  six  inches  long  and  one  inch  in 
diameter  and  a  lever  that  stood  upright  above  the 
press.  The  worker  would  take  the  lever  in  his  left 
hand,  with  his  right  place  the  card  in  the  gauge,  then 
pull  down  the  lever,  thus  making  an  impression,  push 
back  the  lever,  and  the  card  would  drop  out,  while  a 
new  card  would  be  placed  in  by  the  right  hand  of  the 
operator.  It  seemed  to  us  perfectly  marvelous,  and 
as  though  nothing  further  need  be  desired  in  the  print- 
ing trade.  My  wedding  cards,  fifty  years  ago,  were 
printed  on  such  a  press. 

NO    LABOR    UNIONS 

We  apprentices  knew  nothing  of  the  nine-hour  law, 
nor  yet  of  the  eight-hour  rule  that  is  expected  to  be 
about  to  occur  soon  ;  but  we  worked  until  we  were 
told  to  go  home.  The  night  before  publication  day 
I  have  often  worked  until  three  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  the  compliments  I  have  received  from  the 
foreman  and  the  hands  for  my  faithfulness  would  be 
enough  to  satisfy  even  the  most  self-appreciative  per- 
son ;  but  next  morning,  after  all  had  worked  all  night, 
the  atmosphere  in  the  office  was  entirely  different.  I 
was,  in  the  language  of  the  foreman,  a  damn  little 
cuss.  I  was  no  longer  a  little  hero. 

TRICKS    ON    APPRENTICES 

Such  little  pleasantries  as  sending  the  apprentice 
out  to  borrow  roman  bodkins,  italic  small  caps,  italic 
thin  spaces,  and  such  trifles,  were  delightful.  Type 
lice  were  not  invented  then.  One  of  the  realities  of 
life,  and  one  considered  necessary  in  those  times, 
where  sorts  could  not  be  bought,  was  to  send  one 

[77] 


APPRENTICE    TO    EM  P  LOY  ER— TODD 

apprentice  over  to  interview  the  apprentice  of  another 
office,  and  borrow  surreptitiously  say  a  half  dozen 
brevier  capital  M's,  or  some  other  types  that  were 
indispensable  to  complete  some  job  on  the  press. 
They  used  to  tell  about  a  man  named  Moody,  who 
used  to  do  business  in  the  city  of  Boston,  that  he 
would  send  to  borrow  a  dozen  of  some  particular 
letter,  pica  size  ;  if  the  reply  was  made  that  they  had 
no  pica,  but  they  had  nonpareil,  he  would  answer 
that  that  would  do  just  as  well ;  and  when  you  saw 
the  job  issued  from  his  printing  office,  you  would 
understand  why  one  would  do  just  as  well  as  the  other. 
When  I  was  an  apprentice  there  was  a  kind  of  com- 
bination border  used,  which  had  a  solid  line  running 
through  a  mass  of  filagree,  and  by  changing  the  solid 
lines,  curves  and  hollows,  lettering,  names,  business, 
and  such  horrible  things  could  be  traced  through  the 
border.  If  we  were  real  good,  the  boss  would  let  us 
set  up  our  names  in  those  combination  borders  and 
we  would  print  them  on  bronze  paper,  with  gold 
bronze,  and  show  them  to  our  admiring  friends  as  a 
chef  d'ceuvre  of  art.  But  those  were  halcyon  days. 

RESPONSIBILITY    EARLY    IN    LIFE 

When  I  was  twelve  years  old,  my  father  had  a  printing 
office  in  a  country  town,  having  lost  his  fortune  and 
started  anew,  and  my  father,  my  brother  and  myself 
were  his  whole  force.  My  father  was  stricken  with 
paralysis,  my  brother  had  a  bleeding  spell,  and  I 
was  the  only  book  and  job  printer  in  the  entire  estab- 
lishment. By  laying  a  series  of  type  boxes  on  the 
floor  around  the  press,  I  could  set  up  jobs  and  work 
them  off  on  the  press,  and  customers  used  to  come 
into  the  office  and  bring  work,  out  of  curiosity  to  see 

[78] 


LECTURE  V— APPRENTICE  TO   EMPLOYER 

me  execute  it.  No  one  could  be  more  thankful  than 
myself  that  not  a  single  copy  of  the  work  at  that  time 
has  ever  been  preserved. 

STARTING    OUT    FOR    MYSELF 

When  I  was  thirteen  years  old  I  was  let  out  as  a  fin- 
ished workman,  and  it  nearly  finished  me.  My  boss 
at  that  time  was  formerly  lieutenant-governor  of  the 
State,  who  took  up  printing  almost  as  a  pastime, 
and  who  was  a  kind-hearted  gentleman.  One  day  a 
man  came  rushing  into  the  office  in  wild  confusion 
and  haste,  and  said,  "  Old  McConnelPs  mare  has 
been  stolen,  and  we  want  some  posters  printed  right 
straight  off,  so  we  can  stop  the  thief,  if  possible." 
The  job  was  turned  over  to  me.  I  was  proud  to  be 
designated  as  the  one  to  do  that  piece  of  work.  So 
in  all  haste  I  set  up  the  job  in  great  primer  antique 
(and  it  took  all  of  that  font  we  had),  put  a  scarehead 
upon  it,  locked  up  the  form  and  started  to  carry  it 
to  the  press.  When  I  lifted  the  form  from  the  impos- 
ing stone,  it  slumped.  I  was  in  despair  and,  boy-like, 
would  liked  to  have  run  down  to  the  mill  pond  and 
drown  myself;  but  my  boss,  who,  as  I  said  before, 
was  a  gentleman,  rose  from  his  desk  and  re-distrib- 
uted the  type  in  the  case  and  I  set  the  job  over  again. 
At  the  same  time  he  was  talking  in  the  calmest, 
gentlest  way  possible  of  matters  that  were  entirely 
independent  of  the  work  in  hand,  and  so  eased  me 
down.  It  is  not  too  late  in  life  to  commend  his  ex- 
ample to  other  master  printers,  as  well  as  to  foremen 
generally.  Well,  I  suppose  I  must  indulge  in  a  little 
personal  reminiscence  —  I  have  not  so  far. 

When  I  was  in  my  fourteenth  year  I  came  to  the 
village  of  Boston  and  let  myself  out  as  a  compositor, 

[79] 


APPRENTICE    TO    EM  PLOY  ER— TODD 

receiving  the  munificent  wages  of  a  shilling  per  thou- 
sand ems:  16^/3  cents.  I  earned  a  living,  however, 
and  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  owing  to  the  disaffection  of 
the  foreman,  who  had  a  quick  temper,  I  was  installed 
in  his  place  as  foreman. 

FOREMAN'S  DUTIES 

Now  let  me  tell  you  what  I  did  as  foreman.  I  set 
all  the  advertisements  of  the  weekly  newspaper,  read 
the  proof,  made  up  my  paper,  and  sent  the  forms  to 
the  press.  Then  the  papers  were  brought  back  to 
the  office  and  folded.  My  brother  and  I  folded  the 
papers.  Afterward,  when  we  ceased  folding  papers, 
it  was  my  duty  to  address  the  mailing  list.  Then  the 
bundles  were  clone  up  in  the  office  and  carried  off  to 
the  post  office.  One  time  the  boss  came  tearing  into 
the  composing  room  and,  in  a  most  frantic  way,  said, 
"  Thomas,  they  have  pied  a  form  down  to  the  press 
room  ;  what  shall  we  do  ?"  I  replied,  "  The  only  thing 
I  know  of,  is  to  go  and  pick  up  the  type  !"  Then,  with 
a  look  of  stern  indignation,  he  turned  on  his  heel  and 
shouted,  "  Thomas,  this  is  no  time  for  levity."  I  don't 
suppose  it  was. 

We  had  a  change  of  proprietors  about  a  year  or 
two  after  that,  and  the  new  proprietor,  the  moment 
the  papers  were  signed,  which  happened  to  be  upon 
mailing  day,  stripped  off  his  coat,  rolled  up  his 
sleeves,  and  turning  to  me,  who  was  admiral  in  charge, 
asked  :  "  What  shall  I  do  now  ?"  I  said,  "  Perhaps 
you  had  better  help  address  these  papers."  He  was 
desirous  of  making  a  good  appearance  in  the  matter, 
but  I  was  an  adept  —  not  in  making  an  appearance, 
but  in  work.  As  a  consequence,  I  was  able  to  direct 
about  six  papers  to  his  one.  Utterly  disgusted,  he 

[80] 


LECTURE  V— APPRENTICE  TO   EMPLOYER 

turned  to  me  and  said,  "I'm  afraid,  sir,  you  are  show- 
ing off,"  a  thing  which  any  one  who  knows  me  knows 
is  the  farthest  from  my  nature. 

The  time  came  when  it  seemed  perhaps  impossible 
to  hold  me  in  the  smaller  lines  of  a  foreman,  so  I 
took  a  contract  to  set  the  paper  upon  which  I  had 
been  employed,  at  a  certain  sum  per  thousand  ems. 
After  a  time  that  did  not  seem  to  work  off  all  the 
surplus  energy  I  had  in  the  house,  so  I  added  a  job 
office  —  a  very  small  one.  It  was  a  very  carefully 
selected  office,  however,  and  there  was  hardly  a  thing 
in  it  that  was  displaced  because  it  was  useless.  From 
that  time  on,  I  always  found  people  who  were  will- 
ing to  have  me  do  work  for  them.  I  very  rarely 
have  lost  a  customer  through  disaffection,  and  when 
I  lost  one  I  have  found  two  came  to  the  funeral.  So 
cheer  up,  young  fellows,  and  do  not  think  the  heavens 
are  going  to  fall  on  your  heads  if  a  customer  should 
come  in  and  say  that  your  prices  were  too  high,  and 
that  they  must  look  up  another  and  a  cheaper  man. 

GENERAL  ADVICE 

Now,  my  boys,  all  this  time  you  have  been  working 
toward  the  counting  room;  but  you  have  not  yet 
reached  it.  When  you  start  in  business  for  your- 
selves, if  you  are  wise,  you  will  buy  a  very  small  print- 
ing office,  and  simply  buy  the  essentials,  the  indis- 
pensables;  and  then  it  will  be  large  enough  and  cost 
enough,  for  I  am  supposing  that  you  are  starting  an 
office  without  bringing  your  sisters  and  your  cousins 
and  your  aunts  under  tribute.  You  will  begin  to  do 
all  the  work  in  your  office,  including  opening  the  office 
in  the  morning,  sweeping,  dusting,  building  fires,  and 
putting  the  office  in  a  neat  condition. 

[81] 


APPRENTICE    TO    EM  PLOY  ER  — TODD 

I  want  to  say  now,  in  capital  letters:  ALWAYS  BE 
NEAT  AT  YOUR  OFFICE,  Never  let  it  look  like  a 
neglected  mother-in-law,  but  always  as  neat  as  you  can 
make  it,  with  everything  in  place,  including  the  office 
towel.  When  you  begin  to  have  the  work  come  to 
you,  whether  by  canvassing,  or  otherwise,  and  you 
begin  to  find  that  you  are  not  able  to  do  all  the  work, 
drop  the  most  menial  part  of  your  work,  gradually 
leaving  off  the  sweeping,  and  the  dusting,  and  the 
building  of  the  fires,  and  the  errands,  because  you 
can  buy  muscle  better  than  you  can  buy  brains.  After 
a  while  you  will  have  to  drop  your  distributing. 
After  a  while  you  will  drop  your  cutting  of  paper. 
Again  you  will  need  to  drop  going  of  errands,  or  go- 
ing outside  of  your  office  to  canvass  for  work  or  to 
see  customers,  except  in  extreme  cases.  You  will 
send  your  messengers  to  do  your  errands,  because, 
as  I  just  now  remarked,  muscle  is  cheaper  than  brains, 
and  thus  you  will  go  on  dropping  one  outside  matter 
after  another  until  after  some  seventy-five  or  a  hun- 
dred years,  you  may  be  able  to  sit  at  your  desk  all 
the  time  and  simply  count  your  ducats.  You  may 
mount  on  your  wings  like  Pegasus,  only  be  careful 
and  remember  that,  like  Icarus,  you  may  get  too  near 
the  sun  and  the  fastening  of  your  wings  may  melt,  and 
you  be  obliged  to  make  a  most  unfortunate  flop  —  as 
a  good  many  printers  have  done  ;  but  I  hope  you  will 
not  be  among  the  number.  When  you  are  in  the 
counting  room,  remember  that  but  one  policy  will 
work  well,  a  manly,  straightforward  one.  Tell  the 
truth  to  your  customers  and  dignify  your  profession. 
At  the  same  time,  do  not  give  away  the  details  of 
your  business,  for  outsiders  cannot  understand  those 
things  and  will  take  one-sided  views  of  such  matters. 

[82] 


LECTURE  V— APPRENTICE  TO   EMPLOYER 

THE  SAME  CONTINUED 

Do  not  decry  your  rivals,  for  it  may  react  upon  you. 
Let  me  give  you  an  incident.  A  man  not  far  removed 
from  my  office,  who  runs  a  small  establishment,  re- 
marked,' in  giving  a  price  to  a  customer,  "Now, 
if  you  should  take  this  piece  of  work  to  Todd,  he 
would  charge  you  so  much,"  naming  a  price  higher 
than  his  own  The  customer  coolly  inquired,  "  Where 
does  this  Todd  keep  his  office?"  and  the  unfortunate 
printer  had  to  give  the  address  of  Todd's  office. 
The  customer  came  immediately  to  me,  has  proved 
to  be  a  very  profitable  one,  is  perfectly  well  satisfied 
with  his  work  and  the  prices,  and  it  was  only  "a  long 
time  after  he  had  been  my  customer  that  I  learned 
of  this  incident.  Remember,  my  fellow  craftsmen, 
that  you  are  expecting  to  be  in  business  for  a  long 
time,  and  you  wish  to  keep  every  customer  who  comes 
to  you.  In  these  days  of  fierce  competition  this  is 
only  possible  by  making  it  worth  the  customers'  while 
to  patronize  you.  If  he  can  get  the  work  done 
better  and  cheaper  and  prompter  by  some  other 
printer,  he  will  leave  you  without  a  pang ;  if,  on  the 
other  hand  you  treat  your  customer  well,  serve  him 
promptly,  charge  him  a  reasonable  living  price,  advise 
him  for  his  best  interest,  even  if  it  is  contrary  to  your 
own  at  times,  you  have  not  only  retained  a  customer, 
but  obtained  a  friend. 

ADVICE    TO    FELLOW    CRAFTSMEN 

Likewise,  ye  masters  —  for  this  affords  me  a  fine  op- 
portunity to  say  some  things  —  remember  whom  you 
are  instructing.  Give  your  apprentices  full  informa- 
tion, not  partial  information;  instruct  them  thor- 

[83] 


APPRENTICE   TO    EM  P  LOY  ER  — TODD 

oughly  in  the  matters  that  pertain  to  the  craft,  because 
every  one  of  your  apprentices  is  liable  to  be  a  master- 
printer,  and,  let  me  whisper  tenderly  in  your  ear,  it  is 
possible  that  he  may  be  a  better  master-printer  than 
you  are  yourself.  Give  him  a  fair  field.  Give  him 
full  instructions.  Show  that  you  have  an  interest  in 
his  work  and  in  its  being  well  executed ;  show  him 
that  there  is  more  to  you  than  a  simple  slave  driver, 
who  undertakes  to  get  the  most  out  of  his  work  people, 
without  giving  an  equivalent.  Once  in  a  while  it 
would  be  well  for  you  to  put  on  your  reasoning  cap 
and  imagine  yourself  in  the  place  of  your  apprentice, 
and  then  draw  from  your  well-trained  and  fertile 
imagination  the  inference  that  your  apprentice  should 
draw  as  to  the  kind  and  quality  of  information  that 
he  wished  imparted  to  him.  Do  not  be  afraid  to  give 
your  apprentice  information,  and  give  it  freely,  for  in 
this  way  you  make  a  friend  who  might  otherwise  be 
a  business  antagonist.  We  are  dealing  in  futures  — 
not  in  the  stockbrokers'  sense,  but  in  our  future  liv- 
ing, one  with  the  other.  In  the  future,  perhaps  near, 
perhaps  far  away,  your  apprentice  of  today  will  meet 
you  somewhere  round  the  festive  board,  or  in  some 
other  common  place  of  meeting,  and  you  will  associate 
with  him  on  an  equality.  Therefore,  do  nothing  that 
shall  separate  you  from  your  fellow  and  remain  as 
always  his  friend.  An  apprentice  to  whom  I  gave 
some  considerable  information,  perhaps  thirty  years 
ago,  always  hails  me  as  "  Uncle  Thomas"  to  this  day, 
and  although  he  is  doing  a  large  business  in  the  city, 
he  and  I  are  as  chummy  as  though  we  had  both  swept 
the  same  office,  washed  the  same  rollers,  eaten  our 
lunch  on  the  same  cutting  machine,  and  gone  home 
together. 

[84] 


VI 

LINE    AND     HALF-TONE 
ENGRAVING 


LINE  AND  HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING 
.#/  D  A  Y  BAKER,  formerly  president  of  the 
Sparrell  Print,  Boston  ::  ::  LECTURE  No.  VI 

THE  committee  having  in  charge  your  education 
as  printers  has  asked  me  to  talk  to  you  this  after- 
noon on  Line  and  Half-tone  Engraving,  from 
the  standpoint  of  a  practical  printer  and  engraver.  I 
shall  not  attempt  to  give  you  a  technical  and  chem- 
ical treatise  on  the  work,  nor  shall  I  talk  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  wise  printers  here,  many  of  whom  probably 
knew  all  that  I  am  going  to  tell  you  when  I  was  a 
young  man  setting  type  and  running  printing  presses 
by  foot  power,  getting  the  practical  experience  which 
has  been  of  great  value  to  me. 

In  following  the  vocation  which  you  boys  have 
chosen,  you  will  be  called  on  almost  daily  to  handle 
engravings,  either  to  be  printed  by  themselves,  set  in 
forms  and  printed  with  type,  or  incorporated  in  forms 
for  electrotyping  purposes. 

Engravings  used  by  letterpress  printers  (such  as 
you  and  I  are  termed,  because  we  print  from  relief 
surfaces,  letter  or  type  high)  may  be  divided  into  three 
classes  :  wood  engravings,  line  engravings,  and  half- 
tone engravings.  As  the  first  of  these  (wood  engrav- 
ings) are  now  little  used,  on  account  of  their  high 
cost,  and  as  far  better  results  are  secured  for  most 
commercial  and  art  work  by  the  more  recent  photo- 
mechanical engraving  processes,  I  shall  talk  only 
of  the  latter,  which  are  termed  photo-engravings,  be- 
'  cause  of  the  design  or  picture  being  transferred  from 
the  copy  to  the  metal  plate  by  means  of  photography. 
Photo-engravings  for  letterpress  printers  are  di- 
vided into  two  classes — -line  and  half-tone.  Line 
engravings,  as  the  name  implies,  are  engraved  plates 

[87] 


LINE  6-  HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING  —  BAKER 

which  are  made  to  reproduce  lines,  or  drawings  or 
letters  composed  of  lines.  By  this  process  only  solid 
or  full  tones  can  be  produced.  Half-tone  engravings 
are  engravings  which  reproduce  the  half  tones  as 
well  as  the  full  tones,  in  contradistinction  to.  the  line 
process,  which  is  suitable  only  for  the  full  tone  or 
the  black.  While  almost  any  copy  can  be  repro- 
duced by  the  half-tone  process,  line  engravings  are 
more  desirable  and  practical  for  many  jobs.  For  in- 
stance, while  it  would  be  possible  to  make  a  half- 
tone plate  from  many  pieces  of  copy  intended  for 
labels  or  music  titles,  which  consist  entirely  of  lines 
and  lettering,  the  work  can  be  more  easily,  cheaper, 
and  better  done  by  the  line  process. 

That  you  may  better  understand  the  uses  of  the 
two  classes  of  engravings,  I  am  going  to  tell  you  in 
as  simple  manner  as  possible  how  line  and  half-tone 
engravings  are  made. 

Right  at  this  point  I  want  to  impress  on  you  some 
little  rules  which  I  heard  from  my  father  almost  daily 
during  my  boyhood,  and  these  are  especially  appli- 
cable to  the  making  of  engravings  : 

The  first,  an  old  saying,  "  If  a  task  is  worth  doing, 
it  is  worth  doing  well." 

The  second,  "  If  you  want  good  results,  you  must 
start  right." 

And  the  third,  "  To  do  things  quickly  and  well, 
start  right." 

These  rules  you  can  apply  to  your  every-day  work 
in  this  school  for  printers  ;  in  fact  you  might  say  that 
you  are  here  to  exemplify  these  rules. 

First :  You  are  being  taught  to  do  things  well. 

Second :  You  are  being  taught  one  of  the  great 
fundamental  principles  of  printing  —  to  start  right. 

[88] 


LECTURE  VI-LINEdv  HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING 

Third  :  You  are  being  taught  to  start  right  and  do 
things  well,  in  order  that  you  may  do  your  task  with 
due  speed  and  not  have  to  do  your  work  over. 

And  these  same  rules  apply  to  engraving.  If  you 
want  a  nice,  clean,  sharp  piece  of  work  (and  that  is 
the  only  kind  worth  having),  you  must  start  right  — 
you  must  have  a  good  piece  of  copy. 

LINE  ENGRAVING 

We  will  first  take  up  the  making  of  line  engravings, 
the  simpler  of  the  two  processes  which  we  are  to 
consider.  For  a  line  engraving,  to  get  the  best  re- 
sults, the  copy  should  be  on  pure  white  paper,  and 
the  lines  be  clear,  sharp,  and  black,  not  blue",  blue 
black,  or  nearly  black,  but  black.  If  copy  be  drawn, 
india  ink  or  Higgins'  waterproof  black  ink  makes  the 
best  copy.  If  the  copy  be  a  piece  of  printing,  it  should 
if  possible  be  a  well-inked,  clean,  sharp  proof  on  a 
piece  of  coated  paper,  and  printed  so  that  the  design 
or  lettering  will  be  free  from  gray  spots.  A  good  strong 
red  can  be  used,  as  the  photographic  process  takes 
strong  red  the  same  as  black.  Lead  pencil  marks, 
blue,  purple,  or  tints  of  colors,  or  half-tones  of  either 
black  or  colors,  do  not  affect  the  photographic  plate 
so  that  a  line-plate  print  can  be  made  on  the  metal. 
The  copy  being  prepared  in  good  shape  for  repro- 
duction, it  should  be  properly  marked  for  size,  that 
the  photographer  may  start  the  engraving  right.  The 
proper  marking  of  copy  for  the  size  will  save  much 
trouble.  The  best  way  is  by  drawing  two  short  lines 


in  the  horizontal  margin  indicating  the  extreme  points 

in  the  drawing.  These  should  have  arrow  heads  drawn 

[89] 


LINE  CN  HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING— BAKER 


against  them  and  the  two  connected  by  a  straight  line 
broken  at  the  centre  by  a  space  in  which  is  written 
the  size  desired  of  the  dimension  indicated.  The  per- 
pendicular should  be  marked  in  the  same  manner. 

It  is  often  desirable  to  know  what  the  height  or 
width  of  an  engraving  will  be  after  one  dimension 
has  been  decided.  This 
is  very  easily  done  by 
placing  a  rule  diagonally 
on  the  copy ;  the  width 
is  the  ,  known  measure- 
ment, the  height  can  be 
ascertained  by  measur- 
ing from  the  diagonal 
formed  by  the  rule  to  a 
point  where  the  desired 
width  touches  the  side 
Of  the  copy.  The  dis- 
tance from  this  point  to 
the  bottom  or  base  line 
of  the  copy  will  give  the 
exact  height.  If  the 
height  is  known,  the 
width  can  be  determined 
by  measuring  from  the 
desired  height  on  the 


k 


The  original  of  small  drawing  was  the 
size  of  the  large  panel ;  it  was  required 
to  be  reduced  in  width  to  five  picas. 
In  order  to  ascertain  just  how  tall  it 
would  be  in  the  reduced  size,  the  diag- 
onal line  was  drawn  over  it.  The  point 
at  which  this  diagonal  line  meets  the 
middle  perpendicular  line  five  picas 
from  side  gives  exact  height  of  reduced 
engraving. 


edge  of  copy  to  the  diag- 
onal. This  will  give  the 
exact  width. 

There  is  a  transpar- 
ent celluloid  sheet  made, 
known  as  the  Prior  Scale,  divided  into  fractions  of  an 
inch  and  provided  with  a  diagonal  rule  which,  laid  over 
the  copy,  gives  at  once  any  desired  dimension. 

[90] 


LECTUREVI-LINE&- HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING 

The  first  step  in  making  a  line  engraving,  after 
securing  good  copy  and  having  the  size  determined, 
is  to  obtain  a  photographic  negative  from  the  copy  of 
the  exact  size  desired  for  the  finished  work.  This 
photographing  is  done  with  an  ordinary  camera,  which 
is  mounted  on  a  long,  stand  with  an  upright  board  at 
one  end  to  which  the  copy  is  secured.  The  copy 
must  be  perfectly  parallel  with  the  photographic  plate 
in  the  camera,  or  the  photographic  negative  obtained 
will  be  distorted  —  one  side  longer  or  wider  than  the 
other.  You  have  probably  seen  photographs  taken 
where  the  buildings  appear  to  lean  backwards,  or 
where  people  posed  with  their  lower  extremities  near 
the  camera  seem  to  have  feet  of  extraordinary  size. 
These  are  examples  of  photographic  distortion. 

Unlike  the  ordinary  photographic  negative,  which  is 
a  reversed  image  —  that  is  the  right-hand  side  appear- 
ing on  the  left,  the  same  as  in  type, —  the  engraver's 
negative  must  be  the  same  as  the  copy,  in  order  that 
the  photographic  print  on  metal  be  reversed,  like  type. 
This  is  accomplished  by  placing  a  prism  of  glass  ori 
the  end  of  the  photographic  lens,  which  gives  the 
lines  of  light  reflected  from  the  copy  an  extra  turn, 
and  produces  a  negative  with  the  image  in  the  same 
position  as  the  copy.  If  the  prism  is  not  used  the  pho- 
tographer must  "  strip,"  or  remove,  the  thin  film  from 
the  glass  and  turn  it  over  on  another  glass  and  thus 
obtain  the  desired  position. 

At  this  point  I  should  say  that  in  this  country  line- 
plate  and  most  half-tone  photographic  negatives  are 
made  by  the  old  wet-plate  process.  That  is,  the  pho- 
tographer makes  his  plates  as  he  needs  them,  and 
puts  them  into  the  camera  wet.  Our  more  progressive 
English  photo-engravers  are  having  great  success 

[91] 


LINE  6-  HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING—  BAKER 

with  specially  prepared  dry  photographic  plates,  which 
can  be  purchased  the  same  as  ordinary  dry  plates  for 
portrait  and  view  photography. 

After  the  photographer  has  made  the  negative  of 
the  copy,  he  treats  it  with  various  chemicals  until  all 
black  lines  of  the  copy  are  perfectly  clear,  and  all  the 
white  portions  appear  dense  black.  Should  a  photo- 
engraver  find  that  he  has  a  number  of  small  negatives 
from  which  engravings  are  to  be  made,  he  can  put 
them  in  a  special  bath,  cut  the  films  to  small  size,  re- 
move or  "  strip  "  the  films  from  the  original  negative 
glass,  and  place  as  many  films  as  desired  on  a  single 
piece  of  glass,  and  thus  save  separate  printing  on  the 
metal,  etching,  and  proving  of  each  small  engraving. 
Such  a  combination  of  negatives  is  called  a  "  flat." 

After  the  negative  is  made  and  properly  dried,  or 
a  "  flat "  made  up,  it  is  taken  to  the  metal  printing 
room,  where  it  is  printed  on  the  metal.  Line  plates 
are  usually  made  on  zinc  i6-gauge  thick,  although  for 
special  reasons  they  are  sometimes  made  on  copper. 
The  metal  on  which  the  engraving  is  to  be  made  is 
supplied  by  the  dealer  ground  and  polished,  but  the 
metal  printer  gives  it  an  additional  polishing  with  a 
piece  of  fine  charcoal,  and  then  coats  it  with  a  solu- 
tion of  glue  which  is  made  sensitive  to  light,  practi- 
cally the  same  as  a  piece  of  photographic  paper.  This 
metal  is  put  in  a  heavy  photographic  printing  frame 
with  its  coated  surface  in  contact  with  the  negative, 
and  by  allowing  the  sunlight,  or  electric  light,  to  pass 
through  the  clear  portions  of  the  negative,  a  reversed 
print  of  the  original  copy  is  obtained  on  the  metal. 
The  metal  plate  is  next  baked  over  a  gas  stove,  and 
the  portions  which  we  desire  to  have  print  become 
hard  and  brown,  and,  after  the  baking  process,  will 

[92] 


LECTUREVI-LINE6-  HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING 

resist  the  action  of  acid.  The  metal  representing  that 
portion  of  the  copy  which  was  white  is  left  bright  and 
uncovered  by  any  photographic  film,  and  unprotected 
from  the  action  of  the  acid. 

The  next  step  in  the  engraving  process  is  called 
etching.  The  metal  plate  with  the  baked  photographic 
print  is  placed  in  a  bath  of  nitric  acid,  which  imme- 
diately commences  to  eat  away  the  bright  portions  of 
the  zinc  plate,  making  them  lower  than  the  lines  and 
designs  which  have  been  photographed  and  printed 
on  the  metal,  and  thus  making  a  raised  or  relief  plate 
similar  to  type. 

After  the  zinc  plate  is  etched  to  a  proper  depth,  it 
is  turned  over  to  a  finisher,  who  with  a  hand  tool  re- 
moves any  minor  imperfections  or  ragged  edges.  The 
plate  next  goes  to  the  routing  machine,  where  a  man 
called  a  "  router,"  operating  a  tool  revolving  at  12,000 
to  14,000  revolutions  per  minute,  rapidly  cuts  away 
all  the  low,  large  portions  of  the  engraving,  in  order 
that  they  may  not  print  should  a  soft  packing  or  tym- 
pan  be  used. 

If  a  number  of  designs  are  on  one  plate,  it  is  taken 
to  the  saw  and  cut  into  separate  engravings,  and  then 
nailed  to  wood  blocks,  planed  to  a  thickness  that  with 
the  zinc  plate  will  equal  type-high.  After  squaring  the 
block  and  sand-papering  the  edges,  the  finished  cut 
is  sent  to  the  printer,  at  which  point  you,  as  compos- 
itors, commence  to  handle  the  engraving. 

HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING 

Now  that  we  have  the  line  plate  as  far  as  the  com- 
posing room,  let  us  return  to  the  engraving  plant  for 
the  younger  but  more  aristocratic  brother :  the  half- 
tone engraving.  The  half-tone  received  its  name  on 

[93] 


LINE  6«  HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING  —  BAKER 

account  of  the  fact  that  by  this  process  the  engraver 
can  produce  not  only  full  tones,  the  blacks,  but  the 
grays  or  half-tones  of  the  copy. 

In  the  early  eighties  of  the  past  century,  Mr.  Fred- 
erick C.  Ives  of  Philadelphia  invented  the  now  well- 
known  half-tone  screen,  which  consists  of  two  plates 
of  glass  ruled  with  diagonal  lines,  the  spaces  being 
just  equal  to  the  width  of  the  lines.  The  two  plates 
when  put  together  with  the  lines  running  at  right 
angles,  present  a  screen  containing  thousands  of 
small  squares  through  which  the  light  can  pass.  It  is 
through  a  screen  of  this  kind  that  the  negatives  for 
half-tone  engravings  are  made. 

We  speak  of  an  engraving  as  being  "100  screen," 
"125  screen,"  or  "150  screen,"  meaning  that  the  half- 
tone negative  was  made  through  a  screen  on  which 
the  lines  were  ruled  100,  125  or  150  to  the  inch.  As 
the  spaces  between  the  lines  are  equal  to  the  lines  it 
means  that  the  lines  themselves  are  only  one  two- 
hundredth  of  an  inch  wide  in  a  loo-line  screen;  one 
two-hundred-and-fiftieth  of  an  inch  in  a  12 5-line 
screen,  and  one  three-hundredth  of  an  inch  in  a  150- 
line  screen. 

For  practical  use,  65-,  85-,  and  loo-line  half-tones 
are  best  adapted  for  the  newspapers  printing  on 
rotary  presses.  You  can  see  engravings  made  with 
such  screens  in  most  of  our  daily  papers.  Engrav- 
ings of  i2o-lines  are  seen  to  best  advantage  in  mag- 
azines using  a  fair  grade  of  sized  and  calendered 
paper,  such  as  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal,  and  Munsey's. 
This  size  screen  makes  good  bright  half-tones  which 
print  with  ease.  Engravings  of  133  and  150  lines  are 
used  for  good  grades  of  book  and  magazine  illustra- 
tions and  catalogue  work,  where  coated  paper  is  used  ; 

[94] 


LECTURE  VI-LINE6- HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING 

while  for  the  highest  class  of  work,  133  and  200  lines 
to  the  inch  are  used.  The  two  latter  screens  are  rather 
too  fine  for  the  ordinary  printing  office,  as  they  require 
the  best  coated  paper,  the  best  rollers,  presses,  and 
ink,  and  most  skillful  pressmen.  Half-tone  engrav- 
ings are  made  as  fine  as  400  lines  to  the  inch,  but 
they  are  not  suitable  for  commercial  purposes. 

Many  of  the  operations  in  making  a  half-tone  en- 
graving are  similar  to  those  employed  in  making  a 
line  plate. 

In  the  first  place  the  work  should  be  started  right. 
Too  much  emphasis  cannot  be  placed  on  starting 
right  if  you  want  good  half-tones  ;  and  by  this  I  mean 
that  the  copy  should  be  right  before  it  is  placed  in 
front  of  the  camera. 

The  photograph  as  it  comes  from  the  customer 
sometimes  makes  a  satisfactory  copy,  but  often  it  is 
poor,  and  by  its  use  in  that  condition  you  will  surely 
get  an  indifferent  half-tone.  In  order  to  secure  the 
best  results  copy  should  be  turned  over  to  an  artist 
who  makes  a  business  of  removing  any  defects,  dark- 
ening or  lightening  shadows,  brightening  the  high 
lights,  putting  in  back  grounds  or  vignettes  where  de- 
sired, and  have  him  put  the  photograph  in  such  shape 
that  it  will  be  godd  copy,  and  capable  of  making  first- 
class  engravings.  This  is  not  necessarily  expensive, 
as  frequently  fifty  cents  to  one  dollar  spent  in  this  way 
will  work  wonders  ;  but  for  fine  machine  work  it  is  no 
uncommon  matter  to  pay  from  ten  dollars  to  twenty- 
five  dollars  for  artist's  work  on  photographic  copy, 
while  the  actual  charge  for  the  engraving  itself  may 
be  less  than  half  that  amount. 

With  our  copy  properly  prepared,  it  is  placed  in 
front  of  the  camera,  and  a  negative  is  made  the  same 

[95] 


LINE  C§N  HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING—  BAKER 

as  for  line  work,  except  that  in  this  case  a  half-tone 
screen  of  the  desired  fineness  is  placed  directly  in 
front  of  the  photographic  plate  in  the  camera.  The 
negative  is  made  through  this  screen  and,  when  it  is 
developed  by  the  photographer,  shows  the  design  or 
picture  broken  up  into  innumerable  little  squares 
and  dots. 

The  half-tone  negative  is  printed  on  a  sheet  of  pol- 
ished copper,  in  practically  the  same  way  as  the  line- 
plate  negative  is  printed  on  the  zinc.  After  the  print 
is  made  on  the  copper  it  is  baked  until  the  enamel  is 
hard  and  acid-proof.  A  close  examination  of  this 
print  on  copper  will  show  many  fine  lines  and  dots 
where  the  copper  is  left  bare.  This  is  the  result  of 
photographing  through  the  half-tone  screen. 

The  next  step  is  to  place  the  copper  plate  in  a  bath 
of  perchloride  of  iron,  which  rapidly  eats  away  the 
copper  left  bare  by  the  action  of  the  half-tone  screen. 
All  of  the  etching  is  not  done  at  once.  The  first  bath 
is  called  a  flat  etch.  After  the  flat  etch,  the  plate  is 
carefully  examined,  and  such  parts  as  are  required  to 
print  very  black  are  covered  with  a  substance  much 
like  asphaltum  varnish,  which  is  acid-proof.  The 
plate  is  again  placed  in  the  acid  bath,  and  the 
light  portions  of  the  plate  are  allowed  to  etch  until 
the  high  lights,  or  lightest  tones  in  the  engraving, 
are  represented  only  by  very  small  dots  of  copper. 
This  process  is  often  followed  by  the  etching  of  any 
special  spots  desired  lighter,  by  means  of  a  camel's- 
hair  brush  dipped  in  the  acid  and  applied  as  the 
skill  of  the  etcher  may  dictate.  Sometimes,  especially 
on  fine  machine  work,  the  highest  lights  are  cut  out 
by  a  sharp  tool  in  the  hands  of  a  hand-tool  engraver. 
This  gives  the  engraving  added  brilliancy.  Some- 

[96] 


LECTURE VI-LINE<^ HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING 

times  the  strongest  shadows  are  rubbed  with  a 
smooth  piece  of  steel,  called  a  burnisher,  which 
makes  the  printing  surface  much  smoother  and  more 
compact,  thus  making  the  engraving  print  more  solid 
at  the  points  burnished. 

After  the  plate  is  satisfactorily  etched  and  small 
imperfections  removed  by  the.finisher,  the  line  or  bevel 
is  cut  on  a  lining  and  bevelling  machine.  The  proofs 
of  the  engraving  are  taken  on  a  hand-press  for  the 
customer,  and  it  is  then  blocked  and  sent  to  the  print- 
ing office. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  you,  as  printers,  commence 
the  handling  of  the  engravings.  Should  it  be  your 
duty  to  receive  engravings,  you  should  at  once  open 
the  package,  examine  the  plates  to  see  that  they  are 
free  from  scratches,  and  like  the  proofs  sent.  They 
should  then  be  tested  by  a  type-high  gauge,  and  if 
found  too  high  or  too  low,  or  scratched,  they  should 
at  once  be  returned  to  the  engraver  to  be  remedied. 
An  engraving  slightly  low  is  all  right,  as  it  is  very 
easy  to  build  it  up,  but  an  engraving  too  high  must 
be  planed  type-high  or  reblocked,  and  should  at  once 
be  returned  to  the  engraver  for  correction  in  height. 
A  high  engraving  introduced  in  a  form,  especially  for 
a  cylinder  press,  will  cause  the  pressman  considerable 
trouble,  and  in  addition  the  engraving  will  be  badly 
worn  with  a  comparatively  short  run. 

Should  the  engravings  be  found  of  proper  height, 
free  from  scratches  and  other  imperfections,  the  num- 
ber of  the  job  for  which  they  are  intended  and  the 
customer's  name  should  be  written  on  the  blocks,  that 
the  compositor  may  have  no  difficulty  in  getting  the 
engravings  in  the  right  jobs. 

Engravings  should  not  be  piled  one  on  top  of  an- 

[97] 


LINE  6-  HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING— BAKER 

other,  without  a  card  between,  as  the  blocks  that  come 
from  an  engraving  shop  are  liable  to  have  small  sharp 
copper  chips  adhering  to  them,  and  these  sharp  chips 
scratch  very  deep.  Nor  should  the  paper  which  comes 
from  the  engraving  shop  be  used,  as  this  frequently 
contains  some  of  the  small  sharp  chips. 

When  handling  engravings  it  is  always  desirable  to 
lift  an  engraving,  and  never  slide  one  over  the  other, 
even  if  there  is  a  cardboard  between,  because  by  the 
sliding  process  insignificant  particles  of  grit  or  dirt 
will  scratch  the  face  of  the  engraving,  and  cause  de- 
fects that  cannot  be  easily  remedied. 

When  engravings  reach  the  compositor  for  the  pur- 
pose of  incorporating  them  in  the  form,  it  is  frequently 
found  that  the  plate  is  not  square  on  the  block.  In 
place  of  attempting  to  justify  the  block  in  the  form 
enough  out  of  square  to  make  the  plate  print  in  its 
proper  position,  it  is  much  better  to  remove  the 
metal  plate  from  the  block,  place  in  its  correct  posi- 
tion, and  then  renail  it  to  the  block.  One  of  the  best 
ways  of  removing  the  plate,  is  to  strike  the  block 
down  on  the  imposing  stone,  face  up,  with  a  quick, 
hard  movement.  This  will  start  all  of  the  nails,  which 
can  then  be  easily  removed  with  a  pair  of  pliers. 
When  the  nails  are  replaced,  they  should  be  driven 
down  well  with  a  small  nail  set.  This  prevents  their 
printing  when  the  job  is  run  off.  Never  pry  a  plate 
from  a  block,  as  you  are  liable  to  spoil  its  printing 
qualities.  Always  remove  by  drawing  the  nails. 

Before  an  engraving  goes  to  the  press  a  good, 
suitable  overlay  should  be  provided.  This  may  be 
made  by  the  Gilbert-Harris  zinc  overlay  process, 
which  consists  of  a  thin  zinc  plate,  etched  similar  to 
a  zinc  engraving ;  by  the  Bierstadt-DeVinne  process, 

[98] 


LECTURE VI-LINE6N  HALF- TONE  ENGRAVING 

which  consists  of  a  swelled  photographic  gelatine 
print ;  or  by  the  old,  but  ever  reliable,  hand-cut  over- 
lay process. 

The  three-ply  or  three-thickness  hand-cut  overlay 
is  made  by  taking  four  impressions  of  the  half-tone 
on  about  40-lb.  or  5o-lb.  machine-finished  paper.  The 
first  sheet  is  used  as  a  base,  but  the  highest  lights 
may  be  cut  from  this  sheet.  From  the  next  sheet 
are  cut  all  the  high-lights,  or  light  parts  of  the  pic- 
ture, and  then  the  sheet  is  pasted  on  the  base  sheet. 
All  of  the  lights  and  half-tones  are  cut  from  the  next 
sheet  before  it  is  pasted  to  the  base,  and  finally  all 
of  the  blacks  or  shadows  are  carefully  cut  out,  and 
these  are  pasted  on  the  preceding  sheets,  thus,  in 
addition  to  the  base,  making  three  thicknesses  in  the 
heavy  blacks,  two  on  the  medium  tones,  one  on  the 
half-tones,  and  none  on  the  highest  lights.  The 
edges  of  each  thickness  should  be  carefully  bevelled 
with  a  sharp  knife  before  pasting.  This  overlay  will 
give  satisfactory  results,  and  can  be  used  for  long 
runs.  With  packing  and  overlays  properly  prepared 
250,000  copies  can  readily  be  printed  without  appre- 
ciable wear  on  the  engravings. 

When  the  engravings  reach  the  press  suitable  un- 
derlays should  be  made  which  will  bring  up  all  the 
strong  or  black  parts  of  the  engraving,  and  espe- 
cially the  centre  if  the  engraving  is  a  vignette. 

After  engravings  are  used  they  should  be  removed 
from  the  form,  carefully  cleaned,  done  up  securely, 
with  faces  protected  so  that  they  cannot  be  scratched, 
and  returned  to  the  customer. 

Care  should  be  taken  to  see  that  a  proper  and 
reasonably  descriptive  receipt  is  received,  to  be  filed 
away  against  the  day  that  the  customer  again  calls  for 

[99] 


LINE  6*  HALF-TONE  ENGRAVING  —  BAKER 

his  engravings,  forgetting  that  he  already  has  re- 
ceived them. 

If  the  engraving  is  to  remain  in  the  office  for  fu- 
ture use,  it  should  be  properly  entered  in  a  book,  or 
on  a  card  index,  giving  the  number  of  the  engraving, 
the  cabinet  and  drawer  in  which  it  is  placed,  the 
date,  and  customer's  name.  This  will  all  save  much 
valuable  time  when  it  is  next  desired  for  use. 

And  now,  having  briefly  described  the  making  of 
engravings  from  copy  to  completion,  exhibted  the 
work  in  many  of  its  processes,  together  with  appli- 
ances used,  given  you  some  suggestions  as  to  desi- 
rable ways  of  handling  and  using  them,  I  wish  to 
thank  both  the  apprentices  and  the  many  employing 
printers  present  for  their  appreciative  attention. 


VII 

THE     GOLDEN     HOURS 


THE     GOLDEN     HOURS 

By  ]  o  H  N  MACINTIRE,  ex- Secretary  United 
Typothetce  of  America  ::  ::LECTURENo.  VII 

BROADLY  speaking,  my  subject  this  afternoon 
would  not  seem  to  be  directly  connected  with 
the  business  of  those  gentlemen  under  whose 
auspicies  we  are  gathered  together,  yet  unquestion- 
ably it  is  connected  intimately  with  that  business,  as 
it  is  with  every  other  possible  line  of  human  thought, 
human  intelligence,  and  human  energy.  It  has  a 
wide  scope,  possible  of  many  interpretations  ;  but  I 
wish  to  confine  myself  to  those  hours  that  might  de- 
serve this  title  in  connection  with  the  life  of  every  one 
of  you  boys  as  separate  and  distinct  individuals.' 

In  early  life  we  do  not  appreciate  as  keenly  as  in 
after  life  all  that  these  three  words  stand  symbolic 
of.  The  hours  of  childhood,  when  life  is  bright  and 
the  most  serious  care  is  the  obtaining  of  all  the  fun 
and  play  possible,  would  seem  to  many  to  be  the  most 
joyous,  the  real  golden  hours  of  life.  Then  there  are 
the  golden  hours  of  youth,  on  the  threshold  of  which 
you  stand  at  this  time,  and  it  is  of  those  I  would  speak 
to  you  now.  These  are  the  hours  which  in  future  life 
should  speak  to  you  of  duties  well  done;  studies  ear- 
nestly prepared,  work  with  which  you  were  entrusted 
honestly  and  conscientiously  performed.  You  should 
study  most  carefully  the  little  courtesies  of  life ;  ex- 
tend them  to  others  and  make  them  so  properly  a 
part  of  your  existence  that  your  whole  manner  will 
indicate  the  confidence  of  a  clean  mind  responsive  to 
its  duties,  active  in  the  discharge  of  them.  Count  the 
day  lost  which  does  not  see  some  duty  properly  dis- 
charged, some  efforts  made  for  others,  some  courtesy 
extended. 

[103] 


THE   GOLDEN    HOURS  —  MACINTIRE 

When  I  regard  the  conditions  with  which  you  as 
boys  are  surrounded,  the  splendid  opportunities  that 
are  being  given  you  to  perfect  yourselves  in  a  trade — 
a  profession  that  stands  among  the  important  ones 
that  make  up  the  great  commercial  prosperity  of  this 
country,  I  cannot  but  think  of  the  thousand  homeless 
boys  that  I  have  seen  scattered  throughout  this  great 
country  and  in  the  slums  of  our  European  cities, 
doomed  to  drag  out  a  miserable  existence  from  the 
cradle  to  the  grave,  without  hope,  without  oppor- 
tunity, seemingly  without  the  interest  or  sympathy  of 
a  single  human  being.  Could  you  but  realize  how 
much  you  have  to  be  thankful  for  to  the  men  whose 
brains  and  energy,  backed  by  their  good  will  and 
their  means,  make  possible  the  opportunities  you  are 
enjoying,  you  would  strive  by  every  means  in  your 
power  to  take  advantage  of  these  hours  and  make 
them  "golden"  for  yourselves,  and  so  fill  the  lives  of 
those  interested  in  you  with  gladness  and  happiness: 

Let  me  ask  you  a  few  questions  :  Are  you  each  one 
using  the  hours  that  you  spend  here  receiving  instruc- 
tion in  such  a  way  that  this  training  will  tell  in  all 
your  after  life  ?  Are  you  seeking  to  make  every  hour 
one  of  direct  improvement,  qualifying  yourselves 
more  fully  to  discharge  the  duties  of  your  chosen 
profession  ?  Are  you  training  your  mind,  your  incli- 
nation and  your  temper  to  govern  and  overcome  all 
obstacles  and  the  daily  temptations  common  to  all  ? 
Are  you  thus  seeking  to  make  future  golden  hours 
for  yourselves  ?  For,  remember,  it  is  only  those  who 
after  their  training  can  go  out  into  this  great  broad 
world  and  face  it,  not  as  weaklings,  with  a  perfunc- 
tory knowledge  and  a  meager  grasp  of  their  profes- 
sion, but  as  men  who  can  subject  themselves  to  gov- 

[  104] 


LECTURE  No.  VII  — THE  GOLDEN    HOURS 

eminent ;  for  it  is  the  men  who  have  trained  their  will 
power,  their  mental  powers,  and  their  tempers  to 
restraint,  that  are  given  the  power  to  cope  with 
conditions. 

In  the  business  and  manufacturing  world  today  we 
are  looking  for  men.  not  in  the  physical  sense  alone, 
but  men  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word ;  men  who 
have  confidence  in  themselves,  in  that  they  know 
they  are  masters  of  themselves  and  masters  of  their 
chosen  occupation.  To  such,  opportunity  stretches 
her  arms  ;  for  such,  the  world  still  holds  rewards 
and  prizes  beyond  number ;  for  such,  this  great  nation 
stands  ready  to  provide  the  opportunity  to  increase 
her  usefulness  and  leadership  in  the  spread  of  civil- 
ization and  the  improvement  of  conditions  of  hu- 
manity over  the  entire  earth.  For  these  there  is  open 
the  leadership  in  great  affairs ;  in  large  industrial 
institutions,  in  our  political  institutions,  and  in  the 
affairs  of  our  government  in  all  its  branches,  stretch- 
ing from  the  city  to  the  Federal  government  at  our 
nation's  capitol.  For  men  who  will  do  things  there 
is  just  as  much  opportunity  and  as  many  rewards  to- 
day as  there  ever  were ;  and  in  these  golden  hours 
of  youth  I  would  ask  you  to  remember  that  experi- 
ence has  taught  those  who  have  gone  before,  and 
who  now  can  look  back  and  review  the  past  years, 
that  youth  contained  the  golden  hours  of  training 
that  bordered  on  the  next  great  era  into  which  all 
men  enter,  namely,  that  of  opportunity  ;  and  that  just 
as  youth  fits  itself  and  by  the  use  of  those  hours  trains 
itself,  just  in  that  measure  lies  the  scope  and  possibil- 
ity of  its  reward  when  opportunity  knocks  at  the  door. 

The  opportunity  presented  to  you  boys  through  the 
•  education  given  you  in  this  institution  should  be 

[105] 


THE   GOLDEN    H  O  U  R  S  —  M  AC  i  NTI  RE 

thoroughly  grasped  and  improved,  by  observing  a  few 
simple  rules  in  the  daily  discharge  of  the  duties  en- 
trusted to  you,  either  in  your  school  or  in  your  future 
place  of  employment.  Bring  to  the  work  entrusted 
to  you  by  your  employer  all  the  intelligence  and  fore- 
thought that  your  training  has  added  to  your  natural 
ability.  Do  your  work  well  and  do  it  as  quickly  as 
consistent  with  good  and  proper  workmanship,  and 
remember  details.  Check  your  time  promptly  and 
properly  on  the  work-ticket,  doing  this  as  much  for 
your  own  benefit  as  for  your  employer's  ;  and  remem- 
ber that  your  lack  of  accuracy  costs  your  employer 
money,  as  it  will  also  cost  you  money  as  well  as  future 
advancement  and  opportunity.  Make  the  minutes 
count,  for  this  will  mean  a  full  measure  of  appreciation 
from  your  employer  and  also  add  much  to  your  op- 
portunities for  advancement.  In  work  well  done  lies 
the  real  reward,  a  future  fitness  for  greater  things ;  and 
if  you  will  but  take  this  view  of  life  into  the  discharge 
of  your  daily  duties,  not  only  will  your  material  pros- 
perity be  advanced,  but  from  it  will  come  a  moral 
strength  much  more  to  be  desired  because  of  its  bear- 
ing on  your  own  individual  happiness  and  that  of 
your  family  and  friends.  The  mind  fully  occupied, 
controlling  the  physical  condition,  gives  one  the 
strength  to  resist  temptation ;  and  in  this  physical 
and  moral  strength  lies  the  secret  of  future  happi- 
ness and  greatness. 

No  doubt,  as  boys,  you  have  read  many  of  the 
tales  of  chivalrous  knights  of  old,  who  accomplished 
great  feats  in  legend  and  story,  and  probably  some 
of  you  remember  that  famous  knight,  Sir  Gallahad, 
who  went  forth  to  accomplish  great  deeds  and  of 
whom  it  is  recorded,  "  Like  the  strength  of  Sir  Gal- 

[106]' 


LECTURE  No.  VII  — THE  GOLDEN   HOURS 

lahad,  which  was  as  the  strength  of  ten,  because  his 
heart  was  pure."  This  is  the  strength  which  means 
not  only  the  strength  of  physical  manhood,  but  also 
the  strength  which  makes  for  success  in  all  a  man's 
undertakings. 

Opportunity,  despite  all  that  is  said  to  the  con- 
trary, is  not  the  result  of  natural  selection,  but  the 
fitness  to  grasp  the  situation  and  make  the  most  of 
it.  Could  you  boys  understand  life  as  men  who  have 
gone  through  the  years  of  experience  upon  which 
you  are  but  just  entering,  and  realize  what  advan- 
tages and  opportunities  are  being  offered  you  within 
these  walls,  you  would  feel  that  you  could  not  afford 
an  idle  moment,  nor  even  an  idle  thought. 

To  some  of  you  the  discipline  of  school  may  seem 
too  severe,  the  requirements  of  your  teachers  too 
exacting,  but  remember  that  discipline,  obedience  to 
instruction,  and  the  spirit  and  inclination  to  carry  out 
such  instruction,  are  the  only  successful  methods  to 
fit  men  to  command.  He  who  cannot  obey,  who  can- 
not follow,  does  not  possess  the  qualifications  of  a 
leader  or  director  of  others ;  therefore  I  ask  you  to 
remember  that  in  the  pursuit  of  your  occupation, 
wherever  your  lot  may  be  cast,  no  matter  how  dis- 
tasteful or  how  seemingly  out  of  place  your  orders 
may  be,  it  is  your  duty,  so  long  as  you  remain  in  such 
a  place,  to  carry  out  your  instructions  and  orders  in 
accordance  with  the  wishes  of  those  who  may  be 
directing  affairs. 

Avoid  discontent  at  all  stages  of  your  career,  except 
it  be  that  discontent  which  means  dissatisfaction  with 
yourself  because  of  work  improperly  or  poorly  per- 
formed.   Never  be  discontented  with  your  progress 
•  because  it  is  slow.  A  clean  record,  a  good  name,  and 

[107] 


THE   GOLDEN    H  O  U  R  S  —  M  AC  i  NTI  RE 

a  reputation  based  upon  the  discharge  of  duties  well 
done,  tasks  fully  accomplished,  abilities  possessed 
and  used  to  their  fullest,  carry  a  reward  the  measure 
of  which  is  far  beyond  that  of  money  recompense. 

And  now  just  one  word  in  conclusion  :  As  you  go 
through  life  remember  it  is  the  little  things  that  count ; 
the  things  which  seemingly  are  of  no  moment  to  any- 
one, which  no  one  but  yourself  would  seem  to  know 
about ;  the  trifles,  or  what  would  appear  to  be  trifles 
to  you,  that  would  go  unrecorded.  When  you  see 
your  features  reflected  in  the  mirror,  you  should  be 
conscious  of  no  act,  no  thought,  that  would  cause 
regret  or  the  blush  of  shame.  Remember  above  all. 
that  it  is  the  boy  who  can  look  his  mother  straight  in 
the  face,  feeling  that  he  has  committed  no  act  which 
he  would  be  ashamed  to  tell  her,  that  becomes  the 
successful  man. 


[108] 


VIII 

ELECTROTYPING 


ELECTROTYPING 

£j  JOSEPH  H.  WARE,  of  H.  C.  Whitcomb  &  Co. 
Boston   ::   ::   ::   ::   ::   ::   ::     LECTURE  No.  VIII 

ELECTROTYPING  is  a  process  of  making 
copper-faced  duplicate  plates  from  engraved 
cuts  or  type  forms,  for  printing  purposes,  and 
is,  as  compared  to  printing,  a  comparatively  new  dis- 
covery. 

The  first  electrotypes  for  printing  purposes  were 
made  by  a  Mr.  Adams,  in  New  York  City,  about  the 
year  1840,  and  were  made  by  depositing  the  copper 
directly  on  the  wood  cut,  and  thus  making  a  matrix, 
and  then  depositing  again  on  the  matrix  and  making 
the  printing  plate.  This  method  destroyed  the  wood 
cut,  was  expensive,  and  was  not  carried  on  to  any 
great  extent. 

About  the  year  1842,  a  Mr.  Wilcox,  who  was  em- 
ployed by  Davis  &  Co.,  mathematical  instrument 
makers  of  Boston,  made  the  first  electrotype  that  was 
ever  made  for  printing  purposes,  by  taking  a  mould 
of  the  type  form  in  gutta  percha.  This  was  a  page 
of  type  of  a  catalogue,  and  was  used  with  the  other 
type  pages  to  print  the  catalogue  from.  Mr.  Wilcox 
then  started  in  business  and  carried  it  on  until  about 
1855,  when  he  sold  out  to  the  New  England  Type 
Foundry,  who  carried  on  the  business  for  several 
years.  Since  then  the  business  has  gradually  grown 
until  at  the  present  time  there  is  annually  turned  out 
in  the  United  States  alone  over  two  million  dollars 
worth  of  electrotypes. 

THE    FIRST    ELECTROS 

I  will  now  give  you  a  brief  outline  of  how  electros 
were  made  for  many  years,  and  the  time  it  took,  arid 

[in] 


ELECTROTYPING— J.  H.  WARE 

then  give  you  a  detailed  illustration  of  how  they  are 
made  to-day  and  the  great  saving  of  time  that  is  made 
by  the  modern  methods  and  machinery  now  in  use. 

Electros  were  first  made  by  moulding  in  wax  about 
one-fourth  of  an  inch  thick,  then  brushing  the  mould 
over  with  a  soft  camel-hair  brush  with  plumbago  or 
black  lead,  this  making  a  metallic  surface  to  conduct 
the  electricity,  the  wax  being  a  non-conductor.  The 
mould  was  then  immersed  in  alcohol,  which  expelled 
the  air,  and  was  then  hung  in  a  bath,  which  is  a  solu- 
tion of  blue  vitriol  and  sulphuric  acid,  each  mould 
being  hung  on  a  rod  in  front  of  a  sheet  of  copper  or 
annode.  The  action  of  the  electricity  through  the 
solution  decomposed  the  copper  and  deposited  it  on 
the  mould.  Formerly  all  moulding  was  done  in  the 
day  time  and  then  all  the  moulds  placed  in  the  battery 
and  allowed  to  run  all  night,  then  taken  out  and 
backed  up  in  the  morning. 

One  reason  for  this  was  that  the  fumes  from  the 
battery,  caused  by  the  action  of  the  sulphuric  acid  on 
the  zinc  and  silver  plates,  which  was  necessary  to 
produce  the  electric  current  to  deposit  the  copper, 
made  it  impossible  for  the  men  to  work  in  the  room 
with  it. 

Since  the  invention  and  application  of  the  electric 
dynamo  machine  to  electrotyping,  about  the  year 
1882,  these  fumes  have  been  entirely  done  away  with, 
and  the  time  of  depositing  the  copper  shell  has  been 
reduced  from  about  twelve  hours  to  an  average  of 
about  three  hours. 

PRESENT-DAY    METHODS 

At  the  present  time  the  form  of  type  or  engraved 
cut  to  be  electrotyped  is  first  locked  up  in  a  chase, 

[112] 


LECTURE  VIII— ELECTRO  TYPING 

with  strips  of  metal  all  around  it  the  same  height  as 
the  type  or  cut,  and  about  one  quarter  of  an  inch 
thick,  and  are  for  the  purpose  of  preventing  the  slide 
of  the  wax  in  moulding  and  also  to  protect  the  edges 
of  the  plate  in  the  subsequent  operations  it  has  to  go 
through ;  these  strips  of  metal  are  called  bearers  or 
guard  lines. 

THE    MOULDING    PROCESS 

The  face  of  the  type  or  cut  is  then  carefully  cleaned 
with  benzine  and  a  soft  brush.  The  surface  is  then 
lightly  brushed  over  with  very  fine  plumbago  or  black 
lead.  A  flat  piece  of  metal  about  one-eighth  of  an 
inch  thick,  called  a  case,  is  prepared  for  the  mould 
by  pouring  on  it  melted  wax  to  the  thickness  of  about 
one  quarter  of  an  inch.  After  this  cools,  it  is  run 
through  a  shaving  machine  which  makes  the  case  the 
same  thickness  all  over ;  the  surface  of  the  wax  is  then 
brushed  over  with  black  lead,  the  same  as  the  type  or 
cut  has  been,  and  is  to  prevent  the  wax  from  sticking 
to  the  type.  The  type  or  cut  is  then  laid  face  down 
on  the  wax  and  placed  under  a  powerful  power  press, 
which  causes  the  wax  to  enter  the  finest  lines  of  cut 
or  type,  so  that  the  mould  is  an  exact  fac-simile  of 
the  original. 

This  mould  is  then  trimmed  down  flat,  where  the 
wax  has  splurged  up  by  the  pressure  in  moulding, 
and  the  blank  spaces  are  built  up  on  the  mould,  so 
that  they  will  be  lower  in  the  plate  and  will  not  take 
the  ink  and  black  the  paper  in  printing.  This  build- 
ing up  is  done  with  a  hot  iron  by  melting  the  wax  and 
running  it  on  to  the  mould  where  necessary. 

After  this,  the  mould  is  placed  in  the  black-leading 
machine  and  run  under  a  slot,  and  the  black  lead  is 

[113] 


ELECTROTYPING— J.  H.  WARE 

driven  through  this  slot  by  a  powerful  blower  which 
thoroughly  covers  the  surface  of  the  mould  all  over 
with  black  lead.  This  is  a  very  important  part  of  the 
process  of  electrotyping,  as  the  black  lead  makes  a 
metallic  surface  on  the  mould  and  makes  the  wax  a 
conductor  of  electricity,  and  although  this  surface  of 
black  lead  is  only  a  very  thin  film,  it  must  cover  every 
part  of  the  mould  or  the  copper  will  not  deposit.  The 
mould  is  then  placed  over  a  blower  and  all  the  loose 
lead  blown  out,  and  a  piece  of  thin  copper  placed  on 
the  face  and  at  the  top  of  the  mould  for  the  hook  used 
to  suspend  the  mould  in  the  solution  to  rest  against, 
and  make  the  connection  with  the  metallic  surface  of 
the  mould,  and  carry  the  electricity.  The  mould  is 
then  .placed  under  a  jet  of  water  from  a  powerful 
steam  pump  to  expel  all  the  air  from  the  indentations 
in  the  mould.  This  is  a  necessary  operation,  as  the 
copper  would  not  deposit  in  the  letters  unless  the  air 
was  expelled. 

THE    ELECTRO    DEPOSIT 

The  mould  is  then  covered  with  a  solution  of  sul- 
phate of  copper,  and  very  fine  iron  filings  sprinkled 
over  it,  which  produces  a  thin  film  of  copper  all  over 
the  mould,  and  causes  the  copper  to  start  depositing 
all  over  the  mould  at  once,  instead  of  starting  at  the 
connection  and  gradually  covering  the  mould,  as 
would  be  the  case  without  this  process.  The  mould 
is  then  placed  in  the  depositing  tank,  which  contains 
a  solution  of  sulphate  of  copper  (blue  vitriol)  and  sul- 
phuric acid  in  water,  and  is  connected  by  two  copper 
bars  with  the  poles  of  a  dynamo  electric  machine. 
The  mould  is  suspended  by  a  copper  hook  on  a  copper 
rod ;  one  end  of  this  rod  rests  on  one  of  the  bars, 

["4] 


LECTURE  VIII  —  ELECTROTYPING 

which  connects  the  tank  with  the  dynamo,  the  other 
end  being  insulated  by  means  of  a  piece  of  rubber. 
A  plate  of  rolled  copper,  one  half  an  inch  thick,  called 
an  annode,  is  placed  in  front  of  the  mould  and  sus- 
pended in  the  solution  by  another  copper  rod  having 
one  end  insulated,  being  the  opposite  end  from  the  one 
on  which  the  mould  is  suspended,  the  other  end  rest- 
ing on  the  other  connecting  bar.  One  end  of  the  rod, 
from  which  the  copper  plate  is  suspended,  is  connected 
by  contact  with  the  copper  bar,  and  through  this  bar 
with  the  positive  pole  of  the  dynamo  ;  and  one  end 
of  the  rod  holding  the  mould  is  similarly  connected 
with  the  negative  pole  of  the  dynamo.  The  electric  cur- 
rent therefore  must  pass  through  the  solution  in  the 
tank,  and  the  effect  is  to  decompose  or  separate  the 
elements  of  the  solution,  and  cause  the  copper,  which 
it  contains,  to  be  precipitated  upon  the  metallic  sur- 
face of  the  mould  by  galvanic  action.  The  copper, 
which  is  thus  withdrawn  from  the  solution,  is  con- 
stantly renewed  from  the  copper  plates  or  annodes 
which  are  suspended  in  the  solution.  The  deposit  is 
continued  until  the  copper  shell  is  of  the  necessary 
thickness,  about  six  one-thousandths  of  an  inch,  which 
is  about  the  thickness  of  one  and  one  half  sheets  of 
a  newspaper. 

BACKING-UP    THE   ELECTRO    SHELL 

The  case  or  mould  is  then  removed  from  the  tank 
and  by  pouring  hot  water  on  the  shell  it  is  released 
from  the  wax,  and,  after  being  washed,  is  ready  to  be 
backed  up  with  electrotype  metal,  which  is  a  com- 
position of  lead,  tin,  and  antimony.  The  back  of  the 
shell  is  then  washed  with  a  soldering  solution,  and 
placed  face  down  in  a  shallow  iron  pan,  and  sheets  of 

["Si 


ELECTROTYPING  —  J.  H.  WARE 

tin-foil  laid  on  the  back  of  the  shell;  and  the  pan  is 
then  floated  on  the  top  of  the  kettle  of  melted  metal, 
until  the  tin-foil  melts  and  flows  all  over  the  shell. 

The  pan  is  then  removed  and  the  hot  metal  is 
poured  on  the  shell  to  about  one  quarter  of  an  inch 
in  thickness.  When  cool,  the  casting  is  taken  from 
the  pan,  and  is  ready  to  be  finished. 

FINISHING 

The  casting  is  then  placed  on  a  power  planer  and 
the  back  planed  off  and  the  plate  reduced  to  about 
three-sixteenths  of  an  inch.  It  is  then  taken  in  hand 
by  the  finisher  to  be  made  level  on  the  face.  By  rub- 
bing over  the  face  lightly  with  a  flat  rubber  eraser, 
the  low  places  are  readily  seen,  and  are  brought  up 
to  the  level  of  the  face  by  laying  the  plate  face  down 
on  a  polished  iron  plate  and,  with  a  hammer  or  punch, 
driving  the  low  places  up  to  the  same  level  as  the  high 
places. 

After  the  plate  is  made  perfectly  level  and  straight 
on  the  face,  it  is  then  again  shaved  down  on  the  back 
to  the  standard  thickness  of  eleven  points,  type 
measure.  During  all  these  operations,  the  bearers  or 
guard  lines  have  remained  on  the  plate  for  its  pro- 
tection. These  are  now  sawed  off,  and,  if  a  book 
plate,  the  edges  are  bevelled  to  fit  the  catches  on  the 
patent  blocks  on  which  book  plates  are  printed.  If 
the  plate  is  for  job  work  and  to  be  used  with  type, 
it  is  mounted  on  wood  type  high. 

Imperfections  and  alterations  in  plates  are  made 
by  cutting  a  hole  in  the  plate  and  inserting  the  type 
and  soldering  it  on  the  back.  Pieces  are  also  electro- 
typed  and  soldered  into  the  plate,  when  necessary  to 
correct  them. 

[116] 


LECTUREVIII  — ELECTRO  TYPING 

Altogether  to  get  out  an  electrotype,  ready  for  the 
finisher,  there  are  eight  stages  or  processes  to  go 
through,  all  of  which,  excepting  the  first  stage  or 
mould,  is  done,  as  you  might  say,  in  the  dark,  and  the 
electrotyper  does  not  actually  know  that  he  has  a  per- 
fect plate  until  it  is  cleaned  after  being  backed  up. 
There  have  been,  during  the  last  twenty  years,  great 
improvements  made  in  the  machinery  and  also  in 
some  of  the  processes  used  in  producing  electrotypes, 
so  that  the  time  of  getting  out  electrotypes  has  been 
reduced  from  two  days  to  an  average  of  about  three 
hours.  There  is  also  now  used  about  twenty  machines 
where  only  about  six  were  used  formerly.  The 
blackleading  of  the  mould  first  was  done  by  hand 
with  a  brush,  and  took  from  one  half  to  three-fourths 
of  an  hour ;  it  is  now  done  with  the  blast  machine 
in  one  minute. 

By  oxidizing  the  mould,  as  we  do  now,  with  sul- 
phuric acid  and  iron  filings,  and  causing  the  copper 
to  start  depositing  all  over  the  mould  at  once,  instead 
of  starting  at  the  connection  and  creeping  over  the 
mould  as  formerly,  we  save  about  one  half  hour;  and 
by  agitating  or  keeping  the  solution  in  motion,  which 
has  been  done  now  for  about  ten  years,  we  save  about 
one  hour's  time. 

We  now  have  a  dynamo  electric  generator  driven 
by  a  direct  connected  2o-horsepower  electric  motor, 
which  will  deposit  shells  of  the  standard  thickness 
of  six  one-thousandths  of  an  inch  on  fifty  cases  or 
moulds,  17  x  20,  in  one  and  one-quarter  hours'  time. 
We  have,  however,  with  three  presses  moulding,  never 
yet  been  able  to  get  over  thirty-two  cases  into  the 
depositing  tanks  at  one  time.  I  have  here  some  shells 
"of  the  usual  thickness,  six  one-thousandths  of  an  inch 

[117] 


ELECTROTYPIN  G  — J.  H.  WARE 

that  were  deposited  in  one  and  one-quarter  hours, 
and  were  run  with  fifteen  other  cases,  17  x  20,  at  the 
same  time. 

I  have  here  some  samples  of  shells  gotten  out  in 
much  less  than  the  regular  time  of  one  and  one- 
quarter  hours,  and  shows  what  can  be  done,  if  you 
don't  care  for  the  expense.  We  have  two  tanks  fitted 
up  to  do  this  hurry  work,  and  the  first  shell  I  will 
show  you  was  run  in  ten  minutes,  and  is  two  one-thou- 
sandths of  an  inch  thick.  The  next  one  was  run  in 
twenty  minutes,  and  is  three  one-thousandths  of  an 
inch  thick.  The  next  one  was  run  in  thirty  minutes, 
and  is  five  one-thousandths  of  an  inch  thick.  The 
next  one  is  the  standard  thickness,  six  one-thou- 
sandths of  an  inch,  and  was  run  in  forty  minutes, 
instead  of  the  usual  time  of  one  and  one-quarter  hours. 

I  also  have  here  a  finished  blocked  electro  that  was 
got  out  in  fifty  minutes  in  this  way,  —  ten  minutes 
moulding  and  getting  ready  for  the  bath ;  twenty 
minutes  depositing  the  shell ;  five  minutes  backing 
up  ;  fifteen  minutes  finishing  and  blocking. 

To  get  out  this  hurry  work  in  this  time  adds  very 
materially  to  the  cost  of  the  electrotype,  not  only  in 
the  extra  power  consumed,  but  in  the  men's  time  in 
handling  and  following  the  work  through  the  different 
processes,  in  both  the  moulding  and  finishing  rooms. 

The  advantages  of  electrotyping  are  that,  in  long 
runs  on  the  press,  the  electro  will  stand  a  great  deal 
more  wear  then  the  type,  and  by  making  duplicate 
plates  of  the  same  job  the  cost  of  the  press  work  can 
be  very  materially  reduced.  Also  by  setting  a  few  pages 
of  type  and  having  them  moulded,  then  distributing 
the  matter  and  setting  more,  the  printer  can  get  along 
with  much  less  material  than  he  could  otherwise. 
[118] 


IX  . 

MAKING    OF    PRINTING    INK 


MAKING  OF  PRINTING  INK 

By  PHILIP  RUXTON,  Printing  Ink   Manu- 
facturer, of  New  York  ::  ::  L  E  c  T  u  R  E  No.  IX 

WHEN  I  was  invited  over  here  to  talk  to  you 
about  ink,  I  remembered  a  question  a  friend 
asked  me  the  other  day,  "  How  can  you  tell 
a  Bostonian?"  Upon  my  giving  it  up,  he  said,  "You 
can't;    he  knows  it  all.5'    I  consequently  felt  that  if 
this  was  their  reputation,  I  guess  I'm  up  against  it 
pretty  hard,  but  I'll  do  the  best  I  can. 

What  I  don't  know  about  ink  would  probably  fill  a 
book,  and  yet  would  you  believe  it,  there  are  occa- 
sional moments  when  it  palls,  and  I  feel  like  a  certain 
young  man  of  whom  I  recently  heard.  He  had  worked 
three  weeks  in  a  little  print  shop  as  the  devil  —  or 
perhaps  it  was  like  the  devil,  I  don't  quite  recall — and 
removing  to  New  York  again  secured  work. 

At  the  end  of  the  first  week,  he  applied  to  the  boss 
for  a  raise  in  salary. 

"  We  are  giving  you  five  dollars  now,  Billie,  ain't 
we?" 

"Yes,  but  I  give  to  me  mother  all  I  earn." 
"All  you  earn,"  repeated  the  proprietor,  thought- 
fully, "and  what  do  you  do  with  the  other  four  dol- 
lors  and  a  half  ?" 

( It  took  Billie  even  longer  than  that  to  catch  on.) 
"And  how  long  were  you  at  it  before?" 
"Three  weeks,"  says  Billie,  "and  the  way  I'm 
treated    makes    me    wish    sometimes    I    had    never 
learned  the  business  at  all." 

There  are  times  when  I  feel  like  Billie ;  when 
streaks  of  Cerulean  blue  get  into  my  ink-tank  and  my 
think-tank,  and  I  almost  wish  I  had  "4never  learned 
the  business." 

[121] 


MAKING  OF   PRINTING   INK  — RUXTON 

However,  if  you're  not  full  of  quinine,  and  your 
ears  are  in  a  receptive  mood,  you  are  about  to  hear 
something.  I  propose  pouring  a  few  crystalline  drops 
of  ink  hunch  on  your  tympanum,  which,  if  you  will 
allow  it  to  percolate  through  your  unsophisticated  gray 
matter,  will  put  you  so  ink-wise  that,  if  you  meet  your 
old  self  again  on  the  street,  you  will  want  to  kick  it 
into  the  basement.  Don't  think,  boys,  that  I'd  give 
any  ink-dope  to  a  man  I'd  like  to  be  a  brother-in-law 
to.  But,  heart-to-heart,  if  you  will  apply  the  wisdom 
I  am  about  to  give  you,  it's  a,cinch  that  it  will  make 
a  lean  bank  roll  suffer  from  fatty  degeneration  which 
nothing  but  the  library-giving  habit  can  cure. 

I  gave  these  facts  not  a  long  time  ago  to  a  small 
ink  piker  in  a  jerk-water  town.  He  had  a  bucolic 
vacuous  stare,  and  buttoned  his  trousers  to  his  shirt 
with  a  nail.  The  next  time  I  saw  him,  he  had  an 
almost  human  smile  of  intelligence,  was  paying  time 
and  a  half  for  night  work,  and  had  a  twenty-four-horse 
Pan  hard. 

You  have  often  heard  complaint  of  poor  ink.  I 
admit,  there  is  poor  ink,  but  in  this  age  of  alertness 
to  get  up  against  it,  even  in  metaphor,  is  to  leave  an 
indelible  smear  on  your  presumptive  common  sense, 
that  should  make  you  ashamed  to  look  a  keg  of  good 
honest  ink  in  the  bung-hole. 

But  seriously,  the  manufacture  of  ink  is  quite  a 
complicated  matter  in  these  days.  In  the  days  of  old, 
before  it  was  a  business  in  itself,  the  printer  mixed 
his  own  ink  on  a  slab  with  dry  color  and  varnish,  but 
the  volume  of  printing  was  small,  and  this  crude  way 
answered  the  purpose. 

Ink  is  mainly  composed  of  pigments  and  varnish 
ground  together  in  proper  relation  to  one  another  to 

[122] 


LECTURE  IX  — MAKING  OF  PRINTING  INK 

suit  different  grades  of  work.  So  the  first  thing  to 
do,  if  you  intend  describing  the  manufacture  of  ink, 
is  to  give  you  an  idea  of  the  color  making.  In  the 
first  place,  the  dye.  the  same  kinds  that  are  used  for 
dying  cloth,  is  precipitated  on  a  white  base  in  a  huge 
tank,  and  thoroughly  washed  in  water,  long  enough  to 
get  rid  of  all  the  acid  or  alkali  that  may  be  in  the 
chemicals,  which  if  left  in  the  color  would  eat  off  the 
surface  of  your  plates,  so  that,  generally  speaking, 
when  you  come  across  an  ink  that  affects  your  plates, 
you  will  know  that  the  probability  is  that  the  color  it 
was  made  from  had  not  received  the  proper  amount 
of  washing  to  free  it  of  all  the  acid.  After  the  mix- 
ture in  the  tank  has  been  tested  with  litmus  paper  in 
order  to  ascertain  if  it  has  been  perfectly  washed,  it 
is  pumped  into  a  filter  press,  which  is  a  press  com- 
posed of  separate  plates,  between  which  canvas  cloths 
are  laid.  These  cloths  hold  the  color  as  it  is  squeezed 
through,  and  the  water  is  forced  out  through  small 
crevices  in  the  plates,  and  runs  off,  leaving  the  color 
between  the  cloths  in  the  shape  of  wet  cakes,  which 
resemble  a  waffle.  Indeed,  if  I  had  described  these 
plates  as  huge  waffle  irons  it  might  give  you  a  better 
idea  of  them  than  my  description.  These  wet  cakes 
of  color  are  what  is  called  "pulp"  color,  and  could  be 
made  into  water  colors  if  you  chose. 

Our  next  step,  however,  is  to  put  the  pulp  color 
into  a  steam-heated  mixer,  which  operation  evapo- 
rates what  water  hasn't  been  squeezed  out  in  the 
filter  press ;  then  we  have  pure  color,  which  is  mixed 
with  varnish  and  run  through  the  mills. 

Of  course  very  few  ink  houses  go  into  the  manu- 
facture of  these  colors,  but  buy  their  colors  in  the 
dry  state  from  color  manufacturers,  but  you  can  easily 

[123] 


MAKING   OF    PRINTING    INK  — RUXTON 

see  what  an  advantage  it  is  to  the  ink  maker  to  know 
that  his  colors  are  uniform  and  that  the  trouble  of 
variation  in  shade  or  strengh  is  done  away  with,  thus 
making  it  that  much  easier  for  him  to  maintain  a  uni- 
form product. 

An  ink  mill  is  a  machine  with  massive  chilled  iron, 
hollow  rollers,  between  which  the  color  and  varnish 
are  ground  together,  flowing  slowly  down  the  broad 
spout  after  running  through  the  three  rollers,  the 
attendants  helping  the  process  of  the  mass  down  the 
spout  with  broad-bladed  knives  such  as  druggists  use, 
called  spatulas.  Five,  six,  or  seven  times  must  this 
mass^be  run  through  the  rollers  before  it  is  delivered 
to  the  customer. 

Different  mills  are  kept  for  different  colors,  some 
for  reds,  others  for  blues,  others  for  yellows,  etc.,  for, 
as  you  can  see,  a  red  mill  cannot  easily  be  washed 
up  perfectly  clean,  so  that  a  light  blue  could  be  ground 
on  it,  as  the  least  speck  of  red  left  on  the  rollers 
would  throw  your  light  blue  off  shade,  as  would  also 
a  speck  of  blue  throw  out  your  yellow. 

The  rollers  being  hollow,  water  can  be  run  through 
to  keep  them  cool.  The  when  and  why  for  grinding  hot 
or  grinding  cold  is  one  of  the  tricks  of  the  trade. 

From  this  you  can  see  that  to  be  a  successful  ink 
maker,  one  must  also  be  a  chemist,  a  dyer,  and  a  color 
printer,  and  have,  beyond  all,  the  perfect  eye  of  an 
artist  for  color.  In  other  words,  you  hand  him  a  piece 
of  paper  and  a  sketch,  he  must  match  the  shade  and 
make  the  inks  that  will  do  the  work  right. 

The  varnishes  used  are  mainly  linseed  and  rosin 
oils,  the  former  being  used  in  the  better  grade  of  inks 
on  account  of  the  property  it  possesses  for  absorbing 
oxygen  from  the  air.  When  spread  out  into  a  thin 

[124] 


LECTURE   IX  — MAKING    OF    PRINTING    INK 

film  it  forms  a  smooth,  hard  coating,  which,  after  dry- 
ing a  few  hours,  does  not  rub  off.  The  rosin  varnish 
does  not  dry  so  fast,  and  is  used  in  the  cheaper  inks 
which  are  intended  for  softer  paper  where  the  ink  has 
a  chance  to  soak  into  the  stock. 

The  drying  varnishes  are  of  two  kinds,  penetrating 
and  oxidizing.  The  former,  as  its  name  implies,  pen- 
etrates into  the  paper,  and  carries  the  pigment  and 
varnish  with  it,  fixing  it  firmly.  The  latter,  by  the 
action  of  the  air,  dries  the  color  on  the  surface  when 
the  stock  is  of  such  a  nature  that  it  cannot  be  pen- 
etrated. Light  blue  and  greens,  for  example,  do  not 
penetrate  readily,  and  for  this  reason  such  inks 
remain  on  the  surface  and  chalk  off  when  rubbed. 
The  air  dryer  prevents  this,  fastening  the  color  hard 
to  the  stock.  Copal  and  dammar  varnishes  and  most 
of  the  raw  gums  are  imported  from  the  west  coast  of 
Africa  to  this  country,  where,  after  proper  prepara- 
tion, they  are  made  into  varnish. 

The  rosin  and  linseed  varnishes  are  made  in  Amer- 
ica. The  latter  is  very  often  adulterated,  and  this 
causes  a  great  deal  of  trouble  in  the  working  of  print- 
ing inks.  The  principal  adulterants  are  mineral  and 
fatty  oils,  such  as  cotton  seed,  niger  seed,  and  even 
fish  oil.  These  are  all  much  cheaper  than  linseed  oil, 
and  this  accounts  for  the  great  variance  in  price  of 
"  pure  "  linseed  varnish.  Pigments  are  also  adulter- 
ated to  meet  price  requirements,  and  the  adulteration 
of  both  pigment  and  varnish  explains  why  one  ink 
manufacturer  charges  a  dollar  and  half  for  an  ink, 
using  pure  material,  and  another  charges  only  a  dollar, 
using  adulterants  which  do  not  show  in  the  name  or 
in  the  looks  of  the  ink,  but  which  do  influence  its 
working  quality  and  covering  capacity. 

[125] 


MAKING    OF   PRINTING   INK— RUXTON 

Pigments  are  derived  from  three  sources,  and  may 
be  arranged  according  to  their  origin  as  follows : 

Mineral  kingdom  —  Native  pigments,  artificial 
pigments. 

Vegetable  kingdom  —  Native  pigments,  lakes  and 
indirect  products. 

Animal  kingdom  —  Native  pigments,  lakes  and 
indirect  products. 

Among  the  native  mineral  pigments,  genuine  ultra- 
marine blue  stands  first  in  brilliancy  of  color,  and 
although  matched  artificially  it  will  never  be  equalled 
for  transparency  and  durability.  Yellow  ochre,  raw 
sienna,  raw  umber,  and  Indian  red,  are  all  made  of 
imported  earths. 

Artificial  mineral  pigments  are  derived  through 
chemical  action,  and  include  such  colors  as  vermil- 
ion, artificial  ultramarine  blue.  Chinese  white,  pure 
scarlet,  emerald  green.  In  fact,  the  advance  in  chem- 
istry has  been  so  rapid  that  almost  any  pigment  can 
be  closely  duplicated  by  artificial  means. 

Gamboge,  a  gum  from  a  tree  in  Ceylon ;  indigo, 
from  the  leaves  of  the  indigo  plant ;  madder  lake, 
from  the  roots  of  the  madder  plant ;  and  yellow  lake, 
from  the  quercitron  bark,  are  some  of  the  pigments 
of  the  vegetable  kingdom.  Indian  yellow,  a  deposit 
from  the  urine  of  the  camel ;  sepia,  a  secretion  of  the 
cuttle-fish ;  carmine,  made  by  crushing  the  cochineal 
insect ;  and  indirectly,  lamp-black,  the  soot  of  burn- 
ing vegetable  oils,  are  products  of  the  animal 
kingdom. 

All  pigments  are  not  suited  for  printing  ink  mak- 
ing. Many  of  them,  while  extremely  useful  in  other 
ways,  do  not  possess  the  chemical  properties  for  com- 
[126] 


LECTURE  IX— MAKING  OF  PRINTING   INK 

bining  with  varnish  and  producing  the  clear,  even 
impression  that  ink  must  possess. 

Covering  power  is  one  of  the  most,  if  not  the  most, 
important  property  of  a  pigment.  In  comparing 
samples  of  different  makes  of  the  same  color,  that 
sample  which  shows  the  strongest  covering  powers 
is  esteemed  the  best,  other  qualities  being  equal. 
Covering  power  varies  greatly  in  different  pigments. 
Some  pigments  are  recognized  as  being  transparent 
and  are  used  as  such.  Carmine,  lakes,  ultramarines, 
etc.,  belong  to  this  class. 

Coloring  power  is  not  infrequently  confused  with 
covering  power,  but  it  is  a  distinctly  different  prop- 
erty from  the  latter.  For  example,  a  color  may  pos- 
sess great  coloring  power,  and  be  sadly  deficient  in 
covering  power.  To  illustrate  :  Prussian  blue  is  one 
of  the  most  powerful  coloring  pigments  known  to  the 
color  world,  yet  in  body  it  is  almost  transparent. 
This  color  and  others  of  the  same  characteristics  are 
therefore  chiefly  dealt  with  from  the  point  of  coloring- 
power.  But  "other  pigments  are  used,"  as  Hust 
tells  us,  "  solely  on  account  of  their  covering  power, 
and  then  color  is  immaterial." 

In  making  ink,  great  care  must  be  taken  as  to  the 
order  in  which  the  different  ingredients  are  added. 
Some  colors  must  be  ground  hot,  some  fast,  and 
some  slow,  and  it  is  the  "know  how"  in  doing  these 
different  things  that  constitute  about  ninety-nine  per 
cent  of  the  formula. 

The  kind  of  paper  stock  used  should  determine 
the  grade  of  ink.  Heavy,  rough,  colored  papers  need 
entirely  different  ink  from  smooth,  white  paper,  and 
require  opaque  colors — that  is,  ink  made  from  such 
pigments  as  do  not  allow  the  color  of  the  stock  to 

[127] 


MAKING  OF  PRINTING  I  N  K  —  RUXTON 

reflect  through  them  and  transmit  this  color  into 
their  own.  A  transparent  red  printed  on  a  green 
stock  turns  brown,  but  an  opaque  cover  ink  retains 
its  own  color  because  it  is  so  dense  that  no  light  is 
able  to  penetrate  through  it.  Cover  inks  should  be 
of  a  heavy  body  and  so  full  of  color  that  one  pound 
will  have  almost  enough  color  in  it  to  make  two 
pounds  of  ordinary  transparent  ink.  Great  care  is 
used  in  selecting  the  pigments  for  these  inks,  and 
only  those  are  used  which  are  known  to  have  great 
covering  capacity.  Ink  for  enamel-coated  papers 
is  of  an  entirely  different  nature,  and  must  be  made 
in  accordance  with  the  surface  of  the  paper.  The 
tendency  of  the  paper  manufacturer,  during  the  last 
few  years,  to  cheapen  the  price  of  his  enameled 
paper  has  caused  the  ink-maker  no  end  of  trouble 
and  annoyance.  Many  batches  of  ink  are  condemned 
when  the  blame  should  justly  be  carried  to  the  door 
of  the  paper-maker,  who  nowadays  scarcely  delivers 
two  orders  of  the  same  kind  of  enameled  paper  with 
the  same  printing  surface.  Some  of  the  largest  paper 
houses  in  the  country  mark  their  samples  "These 
samples  refer  to  present  stock  only." 

The  best  results  in  halftone  black  printing  are 
obtained  by  carrying  the  body  of  the  ink  just  as 
heavy  as  the  surface  of  the  paper  will  stand,  and  by 
using  an  ink  which  is  so  black  that  a  black  impres- 
sion is  left  by  carrying  very  little  ink.  The  tendency 
of  most  pressmen  is  to  reduce  with  varnish  a  halftone 
black  which  picks  an  enameled  paper ;  this  is  alto- 
gether wrong  and  should  never  be  resorted  to  when 
the  work  is  high-grade  and  a  clean,  sharp  halftone 
is  desired.  The  varnish  is  colorless,  and  while  it 
takes  out  the  tack  it  destroys  the  color.  Linseed 

[128] 


LECTURE   IX  —  MAKING  OF  PRINTING  INK 

varnish  is  made  in  many  different  grades,  each 
grade  depending  upon  its  tack. 

The  ordinary  halftone  black  is  ground  in  what  is 
called  No.  i  varnish,  this  grade  being  best  suited  to 
print  without  picking  on  the  larger  percentage  of 
papers.  The  successful  pressman  on  halftone  work 
will  order  from  his  ink-maker  a  black  ink  ground 
in  No.  ooo  varnish,  which  is  three  grades  softer  than 
his  regular  ink.  Then,  if  the  ink  picks,  he  adds  this 
sort  of  ink  to  his  regular  kind  and  takes  out  the  tack 
without  destroying  the  color,  for  the  only  difference 
in  the  two  is  that  the  softer  ink  is  ground  in  the  soft 
varnish ;  it  contains  just  as  much  black  pigment  as 
the  heavier  ink.  By  adding  the  soft  ink,  a  little  at 
a  time,  it  adapts  itself  to  the  surface  of  the  paper 
without  softening  the  ink  any  more  than  necessary. 
Reducing  of  black  with  varnishes  causes  the  work 
to  look  gray  and  the  ink  to  crawl  along  the  edges  of 
the  cuts.  Halftone  blacks  for  platen  presses  should 
be  of  the  very  best  quality,  because  the  distribution 
is  not  nearly  so  good  as  on  cylinders.  The  ink-maker 
usually  makes  what  he  calls  job-press  black,  which 
is  heavier  bodied  and  more  like  butter. 

Job  blacks  are  made  heavier  and  stronger  than 
halftone  blacks  intended  for  enameled  paper.  They 
have  a  longer,  more  stringy  body,  and  dry  more 
quickly  and  harder,  being  ground  in  stronger  and 
more  tacky  varnish.  This  ink  would  pull  the  surface 
from  an  enameled  paper,  and  should  only  be  used 
on  bonds,  linen,  and  hard-surfaced  flat  papers.  The 
lithographer  uses  a  heavy-bodied  black,  but  it  is  of 
a  softer  nature,  and  different  from  the  letterpress 
printer's  job  black. 

If  it  is  desired  to  lessen  the  tack  in  job  black,  add 
[129] 


MAKING   OF   PRINTING   INK— RUXTON 

a  little  halftone  black,  and  in  printing  on  laid  or  wove 
papers  the  best  results  are  obtained  by  mixing  these 
two,  half  and  half. 

White  inks  may  be  divided  into  three  classes:  cover 
white,  mixing  white,  and  transparent  white.  Cover 
white  is  made  as  heavy  and  opaque  as  possible  in 
order  that  it  may  cover  up  the  rough  surface  of  a 
cover  paper,  for  printing  white  alone,  or  in  mixing 
tints  for  this  class  of  stock.  It  is  often  used,  the  same 
as  yellow  ochre  is  used,  in  house  painting  for  a  primer 
upon  which  other  colors  are  to  be  placed.  Mixing 
white  is  made  from  a  similar  base  as  cover  white, 
but  is  softer  in  body  and  more  transparent  and  is 
used  to  subdue  the  brighter  colors,  by  mixing  with 
them,  to  form  half  colors  and  tints.  Transparent 
white  is  made  with  a  perfectly  transparent  body  and 
is  used  for  mixing  transparent  tints  which  are  to  print 
over  darker  colors.  It  is  especially  valuable  in  mix- 
ing tints  where  black  is  used  for  the  keyplate,  and 
the  tint  run  last.  It  is  light  yellowish  in  color  and 
entirely  different  from  the  other  whites. 

The  manufacture  of  reds  is  a  subject  upon  which 
volumes  could  be  written.  A  red  which  is  pleasing  to 
one  is  wholly  displeasing  to  another.  Vermilion  is 
acknowledged  to  be  the  proper  shade  to  harmonize 
with  black,  but  owing  to  its  poor  working  qualities 
is  used  as  little  as  possible.  Some  ink-makers  have 
succeeded  in  imitating  this  color  almost  perfectly, 
without  its  bad  effects.  Vermilion  is  the  sulphid  of 
metallic  mercury,  and  as  it  contains  mercury  and 
sulphur  is  very  injurious  to  the  metals  used  in  plate- 
making  ;  whenever  used  on  long  runs  the  plates 
should  be  nickel-typed,  that  is,  covered  with  a  coat- 
ing of  nickel.  Vermilion  may  be  detected  by  heating 

[130] 


LECTURE  IX  — MAKING   OF   PRINTING   INK 

on  a  porcelain  dish  over  a  Bunsen  burner,  when  it 
will  burn  with  a  pale-blue  flame  and  with  the  odor  of 
sulphur.  Heated  in  a  tube  out  of  contact  with  air  it 
turns  brown,  then  sublimes  in  the  form  of  red  sub- 
limate. It  is  very  opaque  and  has  great  covering 
properties,  is  insoluble  in  water,  alkalies,  and  any 
single  acid,  but  a  mixture  of -nitric  and  hydrochloric 
acid  dissolves  it  with  a  formation  of  a  colorless  solu- 
tion of  mercuric  chloride.  Very  few  substances  are 
capable  of  attacking  vermilion.  This  ink  should  not 
be  used  at  all  on  half-tones,  or  solids  on  enameled 
paper,  as  it  does  not  lay  smoothly. 


X 

PRINTING    PRESSES    AND 
PRESS WORK 


PRINTING  PRESSES  &  PRESSWORK 
By  JAMES  BERWICK,  of  the  Nonvood  Press, 
Nonvood,  Mass.  ::  ::  ::  ::  LECTURE  No.  X 

IT  was  not  till  the  year  1800,  or  about  three  hun- 
dred years  after  the  invention  of  printing,  that 
any  improvements  were  made  in  the  printing 
press.  The  Franklin  press  (so  called  because  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  worked  on  it),  to  be  seen  in  the  upper 
room  of  the  Old  State  House,  is  perhaps  the  oldest 
style  in  existence  today.  We  also  have  one  of  these 
treasures  at  the  Norwood  Press.  Then  came  the  Ram- 
age  press,  one  of  which  can  be  seen  at  the  rooms  of  the 
Franklin  Typographical  Society.  The  Franklin  press 
has  a  frame  made  of  wood,  and  a  bed  also  of  wood, 
with  a  slate  slab  to  place  the  form  on,  and  a  wooden 
platen.  This  platen  was  only  half  the  size  of  the 
form,  so  that  when  an  octavo  form  was  on  the  press 
the  bed  had  to  be  run  in  only  half  way  first,  the  bar 
then  pulled  over,  then  run  in  the  rest  of  the  way  and 
pulled  again  on  the  other  half  of  the  form,  to  com- 
plete the  impression  on  the  whole  sheet. 

IRON  HAND  PRESSES 

The  first  iron  press  was  invented  by  Earl  of  Stan- 
hope. In  this  press  the  platen  was  as  large  as  the 
whole  form.  The  old  printers,  when  I  was  a  boy,  talked 
about  a  two-pull  press  and  a  one-pull  press.  They 
had  all  worked  on  the  old  wooden  press.  I  think  that 
the  house  of  R.  Hoe  &  Company  made  the  first  iron 
press  in  this  country.  Later  than  this  time  they  were 
made  by  Isaac  Adams  of  South  Boston  and  Otis  Tufts 
of  East  Boston.  In  my  early  days  all  the  nice  work  was 
done  on  the  hand  presses.  The  Riverside  and  Uni- 
versity Presses  had  about  a  half  dozen  presses  each. 


PRESSES  6-  PRESSWORK  —  BERWICK 

FIRST  CYLINDER  PRESS 

The  first  practical  cylinder  press  was  built  in  Eng- 
land by  two  young  Germans,  Konig  and  Bauer. 
These  men  interested  Mr.  Walter  of  the  London  Times 
in  their  invention  and  he  furnished  the  money  and  a 
room  and  the  press  was  built  in  secret,  as  they  were 
afraid  that  the  laboring  people,  with  their  prejudice 
against  machinery,  might  destroy  it  before  it  was  fin- 
ished ;  and  one  night  when  the  hand  pressmen  were 
waiting  to  go  to  work  they  were  informed  that  the 
paper  was  all  printed  on  the  new  press.  Konig  and 
Bauer  went  back  to  Germany,  and  the  king  gave 
them  an  old  cloister  at  Oberzell  near  Wartsburg,  en- 
couraged them,  and  to-day  the  Konig  and  Bauer 
concern  have  grown  from  the  crude  "Walter  Press" 
of  1812  to  be  one  of  the  largest  in  the  world,  making 
the  very  latest  styles  of  modern  fast  presses. 

INK    BALLS    AND    ROLLERS 

On  the  hand  presses  the  ink  was  put  on  with  "  ink 
balls,"  the  workman  putting  a  dab  of  ink  on  one  and 
then  striking  them  together,  distributing  it  evenly 
over  the  surface;  then  going  over  the  form,  dabbing 
it  on  till  the  whole  form  was  covered. 

The  power  press  caused  the  invention  of  the  roller. 
This  was  first  made  of  the  same  material  as  the  dab- 
bers  —  some  soft  material  on  the  inside  and  covered 
with  sheepskin.  This  was  followed  by  the  glue  and 
mollasses  roller,  and  some  forty  years  ago  glycerine 
was  substituted  for  mollasses,  the  roller  of  the  pres- 
ent day. 

BOOK    PRESSES 

As  New  England  had  at  one  time  almost  all  the 
authors  in  the  country,  Boston  and  Cambridge  natu- 

[136] 


LECTUREX  — PRESSES  6-  PRESSWORK 

rally  did  most  of  the  book  printing,  and  very  prop- 
erly the  first  successful  book  press  was  invented  here 
by  Isaac  Adams.  Ruggles  also  took  out  patents,  and 
others,  but  the  Adams  was  for  many  years  the  only 
book  press. 

Mr.  A.  K.  P.  Welch  of  the  University  Press,  Cam- 
bridge, went  to  Europe  and  studied  the  methods 
there  and  came  home  and  practically  invented  the 
the  modern  stop-cylinder,  and  I  think  that  the  orig- 
inal presses  of  his  are  running  there  to-day.  Then 
came  the  two-revolution,  which  has  become  the  most 
popular  press  of  the  present  day  for  almost  ^very 
description  of  printing. 

Before  this  the  cylinder  press  was  considered  only 
fit  for  poster  and  other  rough  printing.  The  machine 
shops  had  no  machinery  to  do  finished  work,  and 
the  gears  were  all  cast  with  the  teeth  on.  Mr.  Welch 
introduced  his  stop-cylinder  in  the  later  fifties  or 
early  sixties,  but  as  almost  all  editions  of  books 
were  small  in  those  days  (500  copies  being  a  good 
average)  it  was  much  cheaper  to  work  them  on 
Adams  presses,  these  stop-cylinders  being  used 
almost  wholly  for  illustrated  work. 

EARLY  JOB  PRESSES 

S.  P.  Ruggles,  who  was  a  contemporary  of  the 
Adamses,  invented  several  small  or  job  presses  and 
monopolized  for  a  while  that  line  of  business.  There 
was  the  "Engine"  press,  where  the  form  was  upside 
down  and  the  type  continually  dropping  out ;  the 
"Combination,"  the  "Bill-head"  press,  and  the 
"  Diamond  "  card  press.  Seth  Adams,  a  brother  of 
Isaac,  also  invented  a  job  press,  and  then  came  Mr. 
Gordon  with  his  press,  putting  all  the  others  out  of 

[i37] 


PRESSES  &  PRESSWORK  —  BERWICK 

business.  As  you  all  know  the  Gordon  and  Univer- 
sal presses,  I  will  not  talk  about  them ;  and  this 
brings  to  an  end  the  subject  of  presses  and  we  come 
to  the  making  ready  of  the  form. 

PAPER    PRINTED    DAMP 

In  the  old  times  almost  all  paper  was  dampened 
before  printing  —  book,  newspaper,  and  even  rough- 
surfaced  writing  papers.  Almost  all  papers  came  in 
folded  quires  and  the  quires  were  run  through  a 
trough  of  water.  This  was  part  of  the  morning's 
work.  The  water  would  soak  through  the  paper  in  a 
few  hours  and  in  the  afternoon  the  quires  had  to  be 
opened  out  on  a  board  and  the  pile  of  paper  put 
under  pressure  over  night  to  be  ready  for  next  day. 

The  packing  —  as  you  would  call  it  today  —  was 
a  cloth  or  rubber  "blanket,"  as  we  called  it.  The 
impression  dented  into  the  paper  and  when  the  ink 
and  paper  was  dry  enough  it  was  put  into  a  hydraulic 
press  to  be  smoothed  out. 

We  all  owe  a  great  deal  to  the  job  pressman.  He 
was  the  first  one  who  used  a  hard  or  paper  packing, 
having  a  small  press  easy  to  experiment  with ;  and 
the  book  pressman  began  to  follow  his  example  by 
putting  a  few  sheets  of  paper  in  his  packing  over 
the  blanket,  and  continued  to  increase  the  number  of 
sheets  till  he  finally  dispensed  with  the  blanket  alto- 
gether and  used  nothing  but  paper,  and  now  hard 
packing  is  the  rule. 

MAKING    READY 

When  you  put  a  form  on  your  press  to  get  ready, 
be  sure  your  press  is  running  well,  well  oiled,  and, 
above  all,  keep  it  clean.  A  dirty  press  is  a  sign  of  a 

[138] 


LECTURE  X— PRESSES  6-  PRESSWORK 

shiftless  pressman.  Put  in  the  right  number  of  sheets 
for  a  blanket  and  have  your  tympan  sheet  drawn 
tight.  If  it  is  a  cylinder  press,  be  sure  that  you  will 
have  just  the  right  amount  of  packing  on  the  impres- 
sion cylinder  when  your  last  sheet  is  drawn  on  tight, 
so  that  the  bed  and  cylinder  will  run  together ;  that 
the  bearers  on  the  bed  are  properly  adjusted  —  just 
a  paper  or  so  above  type  high,  and  if  plates  or  blocks 
are  in  your  form,  see  that  they  also  are  just  type 
high.  You  should  always  have  a  type-high  gauge 
handy  for  this  purpose.  Have  your  rollers  in  good 
order  and  properly  adjusted.  Poor  rollers  will  not 
do  good  work,  and  I  think  the  pressman  of  today 
does  not  give  the  attention  to  his  rollers  that  he 
should.  When  I  was  a  job  pressman  I  always  kept 
on  hand  at  least  two  sets  of  rollers  for  each  press. 
This  was  not  extravagance,  but  economy.  And,  while 
running,  keep  the  color  uniform  through  the  whole 
number  —  a  good  plan  is  to  keep  a  sample  color 
sheet  to  compare  by.  Nothing  gives  a  pressman  who 
is  interested  in  his  work  more  satisfaction  than  to  run 
through  a  pile  of  his  printed  job  and  see  that  the 
color  is  uniform.  After  you  have  learned  to  make  a 
job  ready  in  good  shape,  it  will  be  some  years  before 
you  can  keep  a  uniform  color. 

GOOD    MATERIALS    NEEDED 

One  of  the  best  pressmen  I  ever  knew,  when  I  was 
young,  said  to  me :  "I  find  it  difficult  to  do  good 
press  work  when  I  have  everything  of  the  best  to 
work  with."  Now,  while  a  good  workman  can  do 
wonders  with  poor  material,  it  always  pays  to  have 
everything  of  the  best.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  poor 
economy  to  use  poor  ink.  You  will  require  several 

[i39] 


PRESSES  C$N  PRESSWORK  —  BERWICK 

kinds  for  the  different  papers  and  cards  you  may 
use,  and  have  the  best  of  its  kind.  It  is  a  mistake  to 
try  to  get  a  good  color  with  an  ink  that  has  not  the 
color  in  it ;  you  have  to  put  on  too  much  and  are  lia- 
ble to  have  the  job  offset  or  smear,  while  with  a  first- 
class  ink  you  would  run  a  less  quantity  and  still  have 
a  full  color  and  the  work  clean. 

HALF  TONES  AND  GOOD  PRESSWORK 

About  thirty  years  ago  the  printing  business  was 
revolutionized  by  the  introduction  of  the  halftone 
engraving.  There  were  other  photographic  processes, 
but  the  only  one  worth  talking  about  was  the  half- 
tone. This  demanded  a  smooth,  close  paper,  and  the 
coated  came  on  the  market  and  is  still  the  only 
paper  on  which  halftones  can  be  printed  with  the 
best  results. 

I  believe  that  nothing  will  give  a  printing  office  a 
good  reputation  quicker  than  good  presswork.  Fifty 
years  ago  Harper  &  Brothers  had  the  best  reputation 
in  the  United  States.  The  Harpers  were  pressmen. 

Then  when  Welch  of  the  University  Press  intro- 
duced stop-cylinders  and  the  old  publishing  house 
of  Fields,  Osgood  &  Co.  issued  a  line  of  books  under 
the  supervision  of  Anthony,  the  wood  engraver,  the 
University  jumped  in  the  front  rank;  and  the  fine 
presswork  on  the  Century  Magazine  did  more  than 
anything  else  to  make  De  Vinne  known  as  the  first 
printer  in  the  United  States.  You  can  put  all  the 
artistic  instinct  you  have  in  presswork.  While  a  man 
may  print  type  or  cuts  of  machines  good,  without 
the  artistic  instinct  he  will  fail  on  landscapes.  He 
should  know  how  a  picture  should  look,  and  I  think 
at  the  present  time  when  illustration  plays  such  an 

[140] 


LECTURE  X— P  RESSES  6-  PRESSWORK 

important  part  in  all  catalogues,  the  pressman  is  a 
very  important  factor  in  our  business. 

As  a  successful  pressman,  you  should,  whenever 
you  put  a  new  job  on  the  press,  look  at  the  clock 
and  calculate  how  long  it  should  take  you  to  make 
it  ready  and  how  long  to  run  it  off,  and  try  to  do  it 
in  the  time.  Don't  be  afraid  of  doing  too  much. 
If  some  slow  coach  in  the  office  tells  you  that  you 
will  get  no  thanks  for  doing  so,  tell  him  that  you  are 
working  for  money  and  position,  not  thanks,  and 
you  will  in  all  probability  get  all  these. 


tut] 


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*"' 


- 


LD  21-100m-7,'39(402s) 


XB  66384 


/ 


